


Hostage

by josephina_x



Series: Sufficiently Advanced Magic is Indistinguishable from Science [3]
Category: Smallville
Genre: Emotional/Psychological Abuse, Gen, Imprisonment, Magic, Science, Somebody Is Wrong, Soul Bond, Wrongful Imprisonment
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2013-08-16
Updated: 2013-08-16
Packaged: 2017-12-23 16:09:01
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 29,550
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/928488
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/josephina_x/pseuds/josephina_x
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Clark is having a hell of a time taking care of Lex. He doesn't want to be his jailer, but he doesn't know what else he can do. After what he did in the Arctic to stop Lex... he can't risk Lex running away. He <i>needs</i> to stay close to him.</p><p>And Rao knows what Lex would do to him if he tried to tell him why.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Hostage

**Author's Note:**

> Title: Hostage  
> Author: [josephina_x](http://josephina-x.livejournal.com)  
> Fandom: Smallville  
> Pairing: Clark, Lex  
> Rating: PG-13 (R, if you worry about swearing)  
> Spoilers: an AU that diverges during the season 7 finale; most everything before that is the same, excepting the one "factoid" that I've changed  
> Word count: 29500+  
> Summary: Clark is having a hell of a time taking care of Lex. He doesn't want to be his jailer, but he doesn't know what else he can do. After what he did in the Arctic to stop Lex... he can't risk Lex running away. He _needs_ to stay close to him.
> 
> And Rao knows what Lex would do to him if he tried to tell him why.  
> Warnings: Un-beta'd.  
> Disclaimer: Not mine, not-for-profit.  
> Comments: Yes, please! :)  
> Author's Note: Second in the series, _Sufficiently Advanced Magic_. [Plays with an old trope.](http://tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pmwiki.php/Main/Familiar) (Couldn't help myself; the idea's just come up a couple times recently in a roundabout way. I've been reading sci-fi/fantasy short story anthologies lately; my brain pops out weird things when I do that.) Part 3 overall.
> 
>  
> 
> __  
> ***** Please note that reading this before reading the Lex POV stories will probably cause you to read and view those in a slightly different frame of mind. This story explains a lot (but not all) of what is going on, that Lex hasn't a clue about. I've split these out into three "tracks" (series) because of this, just in case you'd like to try reading the Lex POV stories before the Clark POV ones, or read them all in somewhat chronological order instead of reading all in one view and then all of another. Enjoy! :) *****  
> 

~*~*~*~*~*~

In retrospect, Clark probably shouldn't have used the crystal on him.

He cradled the cloudy white crystal in his hands, the mark of the House of El staring up at him accusingly.

He hadn't _meant_ for things to turn out this way. He really hadn't.

Lex was his _kei-falloi_ , his magic's familiar, and things were _not_ supposed to be like this.

Clark sighed disconsolately and wished that things were different. What he wouldn't give to be a freshman in highschool again. Things had been so much simpler back then, and safer. There had been no Kryptonians running around other than him, and his lies didn't really hurt anyone...

...actually, that wasn't true at all. Lex had had to kill Nixon to protect him, because of his lies. Phelan had died months before that under similar circumstances. Lex hadn't been any safer back then, with everybody and their brother gunning for him, like that whole Club Zero mess that had come back to haunt him. And Kara had been under the dam, while BrainIAC had been waiting for the chance to arrive -- a signal to help him find Earth.

If anything, Lex was more safe now. BrainIAC was gone now, finally defeated. All the Zoners had finally been dealt with. There were no other Kryptonians around. Clark felt sorry that BrainIAC must have left Kara behind on Krypton before it exploded, but it wasn't like Clark could go back in time again to save her. If he tried to do that, he'd risk other Kryptonians getting through, or another BrainIAC clone, or worse. It was probably better to leave things be. J'onn and the Justice League were around to help combat all the normal and abnormal Earth-based threats.

Nobody knew where Lex was, either. After Clark had grabbed Lex from the Fortress and gotten him settled down in the storm cellar, Clark had taken a moment to go in the house and call Oliver up. He'd told Oliver what he'd heard about Chloe from Jimmy. Oliver had said he'd take care of it, and had asked after Lex.

Clark had said he didn't know where Lex was, wasn't sure what had happened to him.

Hopefully, Oliver would find Chloe soon, but not so quickly that Clark didn't have time to think up something good. He wasn't sure yet whether he wanted to say he had the Orb and didn't know where Lex was, or that Lex had just vanished.

If he didn't admit to having the Orb, Chloe would bug him a lot more about finding it, and she'd come around more often. That would make it way more likely that she'd notice that Clark was spending a lot of time down in the storm cellar, which would lead to Lex being found, because Chloe was a professional snoop, not just a reporter.

...Maybe simple was best. Maybe he should just say that he found the Orb in the Fortress, unused, but that he didn't know what had happened to Lex. He'd vanished. A mystery. The Fortress had apparently disappeared at least one survey crew of Lex's before, so...

He really didn't want anybody to know he had the Orb. He hoped he'd be able to figure out a way to get rid of it, soon.

He couldn't believe that Lex had almost used it on him though. That had been a shock. Lex was his familiar.

It was finally starting to sink in, though. Lex had almost used the Orb on him. Lex. He never should have done that, never should have been _able_ to, never should have ever even _thought_ of doing it, but...

It had all more or less started after Clark had used the crystal to pull Zod out of Lex's body.

Clark had seen his family symbol burned like a brand into Lex's right hand, and winced at the sight of it. He'd been more worried than surprised when the symbol vanished seconds later, like it had never been there in the first place. So he'd gone to Jor-El and asked him about what it might mean, to see a brand like that after a human had touched it, and that had been the first time he'd heard the term _kei-falloi_.

'Familiar.' It was the closest human term that had applied. When Clark had tried to ask Jor-El more about it, confused as all get-out, the explanation had involved a headache-inducing stream of words that had been more Kryptonian than English, because there was very little human equivalent for any of it.

He'd done a lot more study after that, and taken it a lot more seriously once he'd started to get an inkling of what he hadn't understood in that Kryptonian-language download before.

Apparently having a human 'familiar' wasn't _completely_ super-rare, but it sure _wasn't_ usual. It was uncommon enough that the gates were usually used for travel as a gateway hub to other sectors, Earth not being the destination planet itself, but not so rare that the Science Council had decided to locate the gates on Mars instead.

It _was_ common enough for _his_ family, though, enough that it had become part of their right-of-passage ceremony to visit Earth, just in case their familiar was there.

Most Kryptonians didn't care about humans, thought they were a step above animals, if that. Nobody had much cared about the morality of their neighbors or friends having another sentient, intelligent being as their familiar, despite the few rules that governed their care. Not when, sometimes, a Kryptonian of the menial class ended up being determined to be the _kei-falloi_ of another, higher-ranking Kryptonian subject.

...It really explained a lot about Zod, that his wife had been his familiar, and how he'd gone insane after losing her, and his son by her. If they'd never should've given him the special dispensation... but then, from what Clark found in the Library, Zod had been a _lot_ more stable after pairing with her, and it was likely that she would have lived as long as he did and he would've stayed perfectly sane, if Kandor hadn't exploded...

There were a lot of 'if's there. If Clark hadn't used the crystal on Lex in the Fortress, the binding wouldn't have taken hold so strongly now. Clark had a feeling that that was Zod's fault, though -- Lex had gotten paranoid about Kryptonians _because_ of Zod. And Clark wouldn't have had the crystal without Zod, because Raya had had it with her in the Phantom Zone, and she'd gotten out -- and he'd met her -- because Zod had tossed him into the Phantom Zone. If that hadn't happened, Clark wouldn't have had the crystal to be able to use it on Lex, either time, and Clark wouldn't be in the predicament he was in right now.

If Lex hadn't been overshadowed by Zod in the first place... well, it was a good thing that Clark and Lex had had a lot of contact before then, or Clark may never have had a familiar. Zod's possession would have ruined it, any chance of their having a bond at all, and that would have been it for Clark. Kryptonians only ever got one _kei-falloi_ in their lives. The rules governing familiars might not protect them from a bad protector, but for anybody who tried messing with somebody else's _kei-falloi_ , pre-existing bond or not -- forget the Phantom Zone, the penalty for that was **DEATH**. And forget Krypton being a supposedly-enlightened society -- when Clark had first read about the _method_ they used for killing somebody who'd done that, he'd had to run out into the snow and throw up.

So, yeah, they'd had the start of a bond before -- and it was a really strong one, too. Clark had always wondered why he'd been so drawn to Lex, and now he knew -- he just wished he'd known before. If he'd just known what he knew now, to be able to explain to his dad _why_ he needed to be with Lex, spend so much time around him, all of it, everything he felt when he was around him, and what it was like when he wasn't... Lex had felt the same way, too, Clark knew it, he'd always known it -- he'd felt it even before all of Lex's talks on destiny and friendship.

It had already been too late, though. The divide had already existed. Clark had figured that one out after he'd finally called up his mom and asked her the right question about the meteor shower that day. When he'd heard about touching Lex's cheek, and their eyes meeting like that in the backseat...

It had made him want to howl. To go out and destroy, rend, cleave.

He'd run off to northern Canada for awhile and burned tracts of land. Broken icecaps and torn up the frozen tundra in great swaths, out in the middle of nowhere. Three days of rage and raging. Three days.

Kryptonians usually found their familiars after their first coming-of-age ceremony, but if they found theirs earlier, it was considered divine providence, and the Book of Rao decreed that neither age nor distance nor species nor any other being, living or dead, was to come between them.

And Clark had a Library full of Kryptonian history, some of which detailed exactly what happened when something did, and it wasn't pretty. Some of it had given him nightmares for weeks, and he had stopped reading _well_ before he'd started hitting the stuff that the Council had marked as needing a special-clearance to view because it was 'just that disturbing'.

So, yeah, it had 'more or less' started with Zod and the crystal. That was when Clark had first become faintly consciously aware of something being not quite right, and had started to try and track down exactly _why that was_.

...and eventually he'd realized that that that hadn't actually been when things had first started going really, really wrong...

... _that_ was where the 'more or less' part came in.

And Clark had been stuck.

Because they'd met when they were little, and they'd started to bond right then and there.

And then they'd been separated by more than a hundred miles and hadn't seen or spoken to each other since, not for another twelve years.

Then they'd met on the bridge again -- hardly a coincidence, it having been Lex's first day in town, and Clark having subconsciously stopped there to wait and not leave. They'd met again, drawn to each other by such close proximity, and their lives had crashed back together just as violently as they had the day of the meteor shower. They'd reconnected and picked right back up where they'd left off.

Except...

...neither of them were children anymore, and both their parents had forcibly taught them the lesson of never opening up to others, never being yourself, never letting someone else in. They'd both been told, and believed, that there was some inherent value in always needing to lie.

They'd had too much between them, and not enough understanding of what was happening and why.

So that connection had been flawed, and it had twisted in on itself the stronger it grew, because neither of them had been equipped to _deal_ with--

\--Nobody had ever told them.

When Clark finally accidentally let slip to Jor-El that Lex was his familiar, he'd nearly broken the center console of the Fortress at Jor-El's response. Jor-El had _known_ , or at least strongly suspected. And he hadn't approved.

He'd decided on his own that, because they'd already been separated -- too long -- that if they were to have a bond, that the bond would never form properly, never heal, and that Clark had been better off not knowing, without trying to pick up the pieces and fix things, repair them as much as he could.

Well, Jor-El was already dead and a ghost living in crystal and stone. It wasn't like anybody could do much of anything to him now, for meddling like that. And the unfairness of _that_ made Clark want to scream and scream and never stop.

 _Intellectually_ , Clark could almost understand it, though, because he'd read things in the Library, those cases where Kryptonian and _kei-falloi_ been separated, forcibly, by accident, or otherwise. He'd read the lesser ones, and saw and heard how horribly, horribly wrong things had gone, and he hadn't even seen-- didn't _know_ the worst of it and what that could be, how much worse it could get because their separation had been so much more severe and the divide between them that much greater, but this was _**Lex**_.

And Clark knew that they'd bonded when they were younger because of how strong and fast he had already become before they'd met again. His Kryptonian 'powers' had been an instinctual use of his innate magic. Kryptonians didn't start getting stronger in their magic until after they met their familiar, and they couldn't learn to control it or get better at using it if their familiar wasn't around to help them. That was why Clark had had 'powers' to begin with, when he'd been little -- he'd already met Lex, and he'd untapped in him the first spring of his innate protective well of energy. It was why he'd had sudden 'growth spurts' over the summer and into the fall, around the times he'd gone with his dad to baseball games at the Metropolis stadium -- he'd been that much closer to Lex in Metropolis for just a few hours, and that had been enough to set things in motion just a little more, inch-by-inch.

It was the same why Clark had started gaining so many 'new' powers over the years, after Lex had moved to Smallville -- he and Lex had been so much closer, and Clark had wanted to protect him, instinctively. He'd gotten stronger, faster, he'd gotten better vision and hearing because he'd _needed_ it, to see and hear around him better, and his heat vision had been an invisible offensive tool that had saved them both more times than he could count. All of it had helped him to better protect himself, and Lex ...and everyone else, but that had been secondary and at a remove.

He'd been doing innate magic -- not the formal kind of 'spellcasting' that used and required other crystals and tools, but he was the first son of one of the highest ranked Families in one of the most elite ruling Houses on Krypton. He'd had more than enough raw power to back him up.

He'd also needed a familiar who was smarter than average. There was a reason that the upper-society Houses sometimes had humans or the smarter Kryptonian animals for _kei-falloi_ \-- they helped to balance out the madness that almost always seemed to go hand-in-hand with having, and wielding, that much power, and Clark was emotional for a Kryptonian. He was also prone to emotionally-prompted physical outbursts, which was almost unheard of for his species, especially for anyone born outside of the Military Guild geneology.

A familiar couldn't choose to be such, or choose to be chosen, and the Kryptonian had no say in it, either, but it sure was really consistent how things seemed to work out that way.

...at least, when nobody interfered with the bonding process.

Clark had also not been really happy when he'd figured out that Zod, being a fully-trained Military Guild general, had taken one look at Clark's energy flows when he'd been innately using his raw magic, figured out what he was doing and how, and applied the techniques himself in a much more controlled and efficient fashion that had completely outclassed him.

So had Kara, who'd had formal schooling in the stuff, but at least she hadn't proceeded to pound him into the ground using it.

He was really tired of feeling like some kind of odd duck idiot-savant. Now he was kind of wishing that she'd explained everything to him, instead of just her waved-off 'you'll figure it out, it's easy' thing about flight. He should've known she'd still been pissed off with him for saying that he didn't need her help and that she was the one with things to learn about living on Earth. So Kara and her grudge had stayed silent on the things he hadn't even known enough to ask a question about, let alone the _right_ question.

So he'd just kept muddling through things, dead-certain that he was missing _something_ about all this familiar business, because it just didn't _make sense_. He hadn't actually had his small epiphany and figured out until a couple of months ago -- that it was _magic_ magic that he was doing, and not some science-biology thing to do with how the cells in his body worked (...well, okay, technically it _was_ , but not like **that** ).

Not that any of that helped with Lex. And things _were_ bad with Lex.

Things had been bad before Zod, but they'd started getting _really_ bad after that.

Lana and Lex getting married had been one of them.

Clark had stood on the sidelines, feeling more and more twisted up inside because of what he couldn't have, and he'd tried to let it go, he really had. But he'd loved Lana, and if Lex loved her...

Clark had double- and triple-checked the histories. He hadn't seen anything on humans on the subject -- probably because they ended up on Krypton and away from everybody so it had never come up -- but with the other Kryptonian animals that usually ended up as _kei-falloi_... once they bonded, they never _mated_. The only exception was in the case of Kryptonians who were _kei-falloi_ , and they only ever mated with their Kryptonian mage-partner.

Clark didn't know which way it might end up going for humans, but he didn't want to try and fix and then deepen his bond with Lex while Lex was in love with somebody else. Not only did Clark have no idea where to start with fixing things with him, but if he tried to do that, and Lex ended up unable to have any significant other in his life as a result...

Lex would never forgive him once he found out, and eventually he would find out. Clark would just be making things that much worse.

When Clark had seen how Lana had run to Lex after that cave-in, saw the two of them together and how Lex had been staring at him, as if warning him off, Clark had given up, heartbroken and depressed. He'd decided that he would just have to wait, and come to terms with the fact that trying to fix things with Lex might takes years, or decades, if it ever happened -- and maybe _never_.

He hadn't even begun to try and process what that might mean for his and Lex's health and sanity, when Chloe had told Clark her theory about Lana not loving Lex. And when Clark had heard that, he had felt like he'd seen the light at the end of the tunnel. That was because Lex wasn't stupid -- if Lana didn't love him, then he _had_ to know it. And that meant that when Lex had been looking at him like that, he'd meant...

So Clark had waited for the inevitable breakup somewhat impatiently, and nearly strangled Lionel in the meantime when he'd found out that Lionel had shoved Lana into Lex's path like that, forcing them to marry -- _the interfering bastard_. Given what he'd read on the punishments for that, strangling _would_ have been far too good for him.

The next year had been a clusterfuck, and if his mom had asked him, he'd have even said it out loud. Lana had been living with him, but ...well, after that video, it was pretty obvious that she hadn't really loved him. She and Lex had spent most of the year obsessed with each other, with Clark caught in the middle trying to deal with the fallout and having no clue how to handle _any_ of it. Kara had been a whole different issue. Clark had been so jealous of how she and Lex had gotten along first-thing, especially when he and Lex could barely have a civil conversation anymore. And yes, he knew that familiars tended to get along with family members because they were at least surface-compatible because of the similar genetics, and yes, he shouldn't have been worried that maybe he was wrong and Lex wasn't his familiar after all because Lex totally was. But. He was still jealous.

And yes, he hadn't been stupid enough to tell Kara that Lex was his familiar, because she would've meddled like a meddling meddler and completely screwed everything up beyond repair. She didn't know humans, and she didn't know Lex. And she was pissing him off by hanging around him, laughing with him, enjoying his company like it was the easiest thing in the world, when he couldn't do that himself. So Clark had done just about everything _but_ tell her directly that Lex was his familiar in order to warn her off him, short of beating her off with a stick, and he hadn't felt the least bit bad about it.

And yes, he was _still_ jealous and pissed off about the whole thing. And he was totally justified in feeling that way, too.

So yes, things had been sour between Clark and Lex over Lana for awhile, but when Clark had gone over to apologize to Lex about what had happened with Lana trying to kill him, for the first time in a long time he'd felt a glimmer of hope. Yes, Lex had said that he thought Lana still loved him, and that had been awkward because Clark knew from Chloe that Lana really didn't, and somehow or another he'd have to figure out a way to help Lex believe that, but that hadn't been the point. What had really been the terrifyingly hopeful thing for Clark, in retrospect, had been that Clark had actually been able to have a halfway-civil conversation with him for the first time in ages. About Lana, no less. That _had_ to mean something.

And then Lex had risked his life in Detroit to save Kara and Lois. Clark had downplayed that to Kara -- a _lot_ \-- but that had actually been a big deal. Chloe had saved his life to help save Clark, too. He was pretty sure that she could have just had Lionel pull Clark out of the machine and only help him, but she hadn't.

Yes, Lex might've ended up hurting Kara on the operating table, but Clark really doubted it. He didn't have the history with her that he did with Clark, and he wouldn't have tried to pull her secrets out of her like that -- not at least without asking first, with her conscious and everything. He'd been treating her almost the same way he'd treated Clark, early on. (...which had been why he'd been so jealous.) Not that Clark told Kara any of that, because he'd wanted her to back off. He'd let her keep thinking what she'd come to believe, and unhelpfully _not_ explained that 'to Lex's benefit' a lot of times meant helping his friends.

Lex also hadn't been as confrontational as he could've been with Clark about Lana's coma. He'd been angry about how Lana had gotten hurt being around Clark, but that had been almost normal -- Clark would've reacted the same way if their situations had been reversed. And when it came down to it, Lex had killed Lionel for him. After being caged up like that by Lionel, Clark had told Patricia Swann that he'd take care of it. And then she had died. He hadn't known if it was Lionel or Lex, but he'd have bet it was Lionel. And then Lionel had died. He'd deserved it, too. Clark had finally figured out the two-Segeths thing by that point, rereading the Kawatche legends, and how Lionel must have been the enemy, while Lex was his 'friend-companion' -- his familiar -- and it had all made perfect sense.

Lex had had the _right_ to kill Lionel, too, for getting between them. Clark knew that. The problem was, Clark was pretty sure that _Lex_ didn't know that ...well, not consciously, anyway. So he'd pressed, and pressed, and tried to make Lex either admit it, or... well, _admit it_ \-- that he'd killed Lionel for Clark. But he hadn't. It had been frustrating as hell. And then Clark had realized that Lex was completely distraught, and he'd had to stop pushing, backed off.

Later, he'd nearly had a nervous breakdown over what he'd said to Lex to try and make him lash out -- because Clark knew from experience that when Lex really lashed out, he did that with the _truth_. Clark had been afraid that he'd made things that much worse. He'd gone to Chloe for something like a second opinion and someone to talk to, and he'd felt almost ill about some of the things he'd said to try and get a rise out of Lex, to try and force him to admit, to then _realize_ , that the opposite had been true. Lionel hadn't loved him. Lex wouldn't have ever made him proud if he'd tried hard enough. Lex should have fought back and said those things, admitted them openly and finally known they were true after hearing himself say them out loud. But for some reason, Lex hadn't called him out as a liar, hadn't acted like he ever had before. Clark hadn't gone far enough, and Clark had no idea how he could have pushed him any farther without breaking him.

But even though Clark had been almost a wreck over that latest fight, he'd also somehow felt better, on-edge, almost excited, like there was a storm front coming in. Somehow, it had felt like he was really close to a tipping point with Lex, that the next time.... the next time they'd be able to settle things, for real. They'd clash, and yell, and scream, and fight, and get it all out there, and then...

So when Lex had started tracking down the next most dangerous Kryptonian artifact out there -- _next most_ because the Fortress could control him, too, to an extent, and was a lot more powerful than the Orb -- Clark hadn't actually worried too much about it, except for what Lex might do to get it, or who might try to stop him. When he got attacked, Clark ended up saving him, after being saved by Chloe himself. Given that Lex was trying to get to the artifact first, before Teague... well, the idea of it being in Lex's possession had made him feel a lot safer. Lex wasn't an insane lunatic like the rest of the Veritas members kept turning out to be -- even Dr. Swann had always at least slightly given him the creeps, and so had Patricia when he'd met her. He hadn't wanted to go with her for a reason. The Swanns and their people had treated him too much like the Kawatche had -- only more so.

No, Lex was not insane, and he did things on purpose, more often than not, especially nowadays. Clark knew that he'd be slow, methodical, and lock the artifact up like the weapon it was. He'd think really carefully about it before trying to use it on anything or anyone, and... well, he _wouldn't_ use it. Not on Clark.

They'd fight it out first. Lex would find out that Clark was the Traveler, and Kal-El, and Kryptonian, and he'd have to stop and rethink things. And then he'd be incredibly angry that Clark hadn't told him sooner.

And then they'd fight about it. And then things would be okay.

Clark had brought along the crystal so he could show Lex that he was telling the truth. He'd planned on handing it over to Lex, because if Lex had held it in his right hand again, well, it wouldn't have done anything more than had already happened -- it was step 1. It had shown Lex was compatible as his familiar, his _kei-falloi_ , and the mark would have reappeared if he'd held it again.

Except that hadn't been how things had gone. Instead, Clark had panicked at Lex's reaction, hadn't been able to talk to him, to explain, to fix things _right_ , and Lex hadn't been _listening_ **at all** \--

...and Clark had ended up having to use the crystal to control Lex, and in the process of using it had forcibly instigated the beginning of a full bond -- himself to Lex.

And now Clark was stuck.

Normally, a _kei-falloi_ and their Kryptonian could let the bond form naturally. If both of them wanted to, they could use a catalyst -- like the crystal -- to forcibly enact a full two-way bond right away.

What Clark had done had tied him to Lex completely, but Lex's bond to him was just as it had been before. ...and just as screwed up.

Clark had known that would happen if he did what he did, but he'd done it anyway.

He'd had to. The alternative would have been worse.

Lex was literally the one human on the planet who could not have used the Orb on him effectively. And it was _because_ he was Clark's familiar.

If Lex had used the Orb on him... well, it was supposed to give Lex control over him. The only problem was that when Lex had gotten it close to the console of the Fortress, and it had started to 'warm-up' and begin its activation sequence, Clark had gotten a good look at its energy flow and the type of 'program' it was about to execute and... to say that it was completely incompatible with the _kei-falloi_ -Kryptonian bond was an understatement.

The bond between familiar and protector was dual, but the Kryptonian was the one with the overt control, in a sense. The _kei-falloi_ was just the supporting twin to their power. Lex was never meant to control the flow of power between them directly -- Clark directed it as he willed -- what Lex was meant to do was to help enhance and smooth the flow, indirectly at best. The Orb's energy pattern, meant to set up a matrix that would allow a human to act as a Kryptonian to a Kryptonian and leave Clark in the _kei-falloi_ role, _couldn't_ work because of the small but growing bond they'd already had. The feedback that would have cycled between the two of them as the Orb tried to force that reversion of control and make it happen anyway would have been bad. Either it would have ripped their bond apart completely, torn it to shreds, or twisted it beyond recognition. The crystalline Fortress itself, which would have been acting as the conduit for the magic contained in the Orb, probably would have ended up collapsing from the vibratory strain of trying to create an artificial control-bond in opposition to the one that already existed.

Worse, after the Orb had gotten done with Clark -- and Lex by extension, since they had at least had a fledgling two-way bond already -- the energies would have literally flung them apart, like two positive poles on a magnet, who knew how far. Clark could survive just fine in the Arctic wastes as long as his energy flow wasn't so badly compromised that he couldn't use his innate magics, but Lex? No way. And Clark would have been unable to physically approach Lex ever again, and the same would have been true for Lex. And that meant that Clark wouldn't have been able to find and help him afterwards.

This of course, was assuming that he even could have, or would have, wanted to help Lex afterwards, with how messed up his body's personal energies would have been after something like that. Energy states and flows were closely linked to mental and emotional states in Kryptonians. If their latent, burgeoning bond had been twisted instead of snapped... Clark probably would have felt driven to kill him, and if the bond had _snapped_... well, all things considered, he might have gone mad from the loss and done that anyway.

And, even if they'd somehow managed to escape homicidal rage as a side effect of the Orb's failure to work as-intended, Clark likely would have been unable to think clearly afterwards, and if he had tried to grab Lex, hurrying after him, the repelling nature of the twin energies would have prevented Clark from approaching... and shoved Lex along. If he'd acted blindly, then eventually Clark would have forced him off of dry land and into the ocean, and the subzero temperatures would have had Lex hypothermic and dead within seconds.

If their bond had 'only' been torn to shreds, it wouldn't have ended much better. Partial bonding caused problems, _big_ problems, especially when the bond was unbalanced and inflexible. If their bond had been shredded like that by the Orb, it might not have ever been able to be repaired, never growing, never changing. Having that happen would have been far more likely to leave them dead and or permanently damaged than even a twisted bond would.

In retrospect, Clark had to wonder if that had been the reason why BrainIAC had been cultivating and pushing Lex on all this stuff in the first place. Zod had lost his _kei-falloi_ and his son, and Kryptonians seemed to really have a hard-on for punishing kids for what their parents did. He and Lex might not have a biological son or anything, but BrainIAC finding a way to force Clark into ending up killing or destroying his _kei-falloi_ partner sounded a lot like what Zod would want for revenge after his own family had died, which he apparently blamed on Jor-El for whatever reason.

Clark sighed and turned the crystal over in his hands again, as he crouched in the grass and dirt. He X-rayed below his feet, and saw Lex sulking, sitting in the dirt with his back against the wall, chained down in place.

So. He'd gotten Lex back from the Fortress. He'd more-or-less locked Lex up in the storm cellar _so he couldn't run away_ , which just made both his head and his heart hurt even thinking about it. He'd called Oliver and told the truth about Chloe and lied about Lex.

He was crouching not nine feet above Lex's head and having serious trouble trying to force himself to move away. He didn't want to chain Lex up and force him to stay. He didn't want to be hovering around, nearby.

What he really wanted to do was throw open those cellar doors, go right back downstairs, and scoop Lex up in a hug and never, ever, _**ever**_ let him go, ever again. Ever.

...Yeah, like _that_ would go over well. He'd already fought like a madman against the chains; he was seriously angry with Clark. If Clark tried to do anything even remotely like that, Lex would probably hurt himself trying to get free.

Which was just **wrong** on _so_ many levels.

It was the bond. Clark had stupidly forced himself into a one-sided full bond with Lex. He was attuned to his presence now, and he was being driven to try and stay close enough to Lex to basically pull Lex up to his level.

Not that that was technically the real issue. Heck, Clark could force Lex to have a full bond with him whenever he wanted. It was remarkably simple.

And completely and utter wrong and would likely end up with them both going completely insane, because as screwed up as their relationship was right now, completing the bond would only magnify those issues, and twist the bond into something full of absolute spite and pure poison and a deep and abiding hatred. For that to work, for a forced bonding to not ultimately end up killing them, Lex needed to stop fighting him, _as a start_.

The _problem_ was that Clark needed to repair things with Lex long before things ever got that far, and Clark had no more idea how to do that than he'd ever had.

Luckily for him, bonding with more sentient species was a way longer process than for others, so he had some time.

He'd really screwed up blurting out to Lex about how he was his familiar, though. He knew how crazy it sounded. _Clark_ had kept researching things, looking them up, thinking this familiar stuff couldn't be right. He'd kept researching things blindly, too, right up until he'd finally stumbled across the right things and realized what he now knew about Kryptonians being into the magic-not-science stuff, and not the other way around.

He'd planned on explaining the magic stuff to Lex first, so that the familiar stuff wouldn't sound completely bizarre and unreal. At least that way he'd have been able to give Lex some time to work up to the idea of it. Clark wasn't stupid; he knew Lex didn't like being told what to do. All those lectures about destiny were one thing, yeah, but all the other stuff about 'making his own fate'?

...No, Lex was **not** gonna be happy to hear any of this stuff about familiars. He was gonna be _mad_ , mad at himself, mad at the world and life in general, and mad at Clark. And the last one was the sort of thing that twisted a bond into something really awful, and twisted the paired _kei-falloi_ and Kryptonian right along with it.

And Lex needed to stay close by because Clark would end up sick if he didn't because their bond was so uneven. If Lex ran... Clark had been able to try and repair his side of the bond, what he felt, as much as possible. Ever since he'd gotten some idea of what had been happening, why he had been feeling the way he did when he had fights with Lex even after they weren't friends anymore, he'd started putting real effort into trying to smooth things out after he saw him, after they fought. He couldn't control himself real well when they were together, but afterwards... he was stubborn enough to force himself to calm down and try to deal with the emotions properly, to cool down and forgive Lex because he didn't know what he was doing when he did that, to not let things get to him so badly that he stopped caring about _how Lex could get hurt_ and started caring about _how he could hurt Lex_.

...And it would probably be really helpful if this included getting up, walking away from the storm cellar where Lex was, locking away the crystal and the Orb someplace safe... and then coming back to be with Lex.

Which he could do right n-- _No!_. No. He had to do the _other_ things first!

Clark shook his head and stood up. _Other things first. Lex after._

Clark used superspeed to deal with the other things.

Then he crouched down on the grassy ground above Lex's head and thought and thought. What could he do?

Okay, he needed Lex to like him again. Otherwise their bond would end up even more twisted than it already was. --Also, he really, _really_ wanted Lex to like him again.

So how could he do that? What would help?

...Getting him out of that storm cellar, for starters. Lex was _not_ going to like him again while he was stuck down there. That was not gonna happen.

For starters, Clark had seen Lex dirty before, but he didn't _like_ dirt. He'd also been kidnapped a lot of times and restrained and stuff, and he didn't like that, either.

And he didn't like being told what he could do or where he could and could not go. He'd hated it when Lionel had told him he had to move to Smallville, but what he'd hated even worse had been Lionel telling him that he couldn't _leave_.

Problem was, Clark couldn't just let him go, because he'd run, and then Clark would go insane and probably kill him.

Because if there was one thing Clark knew about himself, it was this: if Lex ran away from him now, now that he knew what Clark was, Clark wouldn't be able to take the rejection. He wouldn't be able to think clearly enough to calm down. He wouldn't be able to think through the pain at all.

He knew this because every time he'd ever thought about telling Lex -- and he'd thought about that a lot over the years -- every time the thought had occurred to him that Lex might hate him for lying to him -- at best -- or never want to see him ever again -- at worst, yes _worst_ ...and yeah, his priorities might be a little screwed up there because 'hate' was likely to get him shoved in a cage and tortured, but at least if Lex did that then he'd end up being nearby and not _ignoring_ him, he wasn't Lionel, he took stuff personally, especially with the weak bond he already felt--

But. Yeah. He'd thought about all the possible things that could happen after telling Lex he was an alien. He'd thought about it a _lot_. And every time he'd ever thought about Lex rejecting him -- even the possibility of it -- he'd felt sick, had a panic attack, and had to go out running to calm down, or to go out and break things... it had only gotten worse as time went on. So, no. Clark would not be able to handle that well. He would not be able to handle that _at all_.

So Lex needed to stay with him. Nearby. Preferably as close as humanly possible, and that was where he started running into trouble again, because Lex had almost used the Orb on him, and Clark had forced him to do something that was the opposite of something that clearly he had wanted to do, and now Lex hated him. A lot.

It still gave him the shudders to think about the Orb, and he'd been so tied up in thinking about Lex that he'd had it in his coat pocket and kept crouching there above Lex for who-knew-how-long instead of getting it the hell away from him and-- _god_ he'd thought this bond stuff had been bad before!

Clark ran his hands through his hair. He wasn't getting anywhere like this.

Then he heard Lex's stomach growl and started.

Food. Right. He could do that.

\--Actually, he could _start_ with that. That would be a good start. Something about providing food carefully and not startling him so much. There were books and things that had been in the Library that Clark had read about taming wild familiars, when they weren't sentient. (Sentient familiars were rare, almost as rare as human familiars, because Kryptonian familiars had been only slightly less rare than human ones. Clark sometimes really wondered about that. He knew the Kawatche had been genetically engineered by Kryptonians, and if it was something controllable then more Kawatche probably would have been 'picked', but not a single one had ever become a familiar, and now probably never would.)

Yes, the 'normal' stuff he'd read about that had been about making a bond from scratch. And yes, their bond was already screwed up, but at least it was _something_...

He was really worried about the human-specific familiar stuff, though, because the only things he'd found so far had talked about everything after the fact, after the bond had already existed. It also worried him that the things that had happened with the smarter Kryptonian animals that had ended up in screwed-up bonds hadn't exactly been helpful in helping him figure out trying to _fix_ things with anybody, let alone _Lex_.

Because so far, he hadn't found anything that had talked about a broken, failed, twisted, or otherwise screwed-up bond getting fixed later. Everything had ended badly, every single time. So with that track record, they were both probably screwed no matter what Clark did.

The only thing that _might_ give him a little hope that they'd make it out of this alive and mostly sane was that he hadn't read anything that had talked about a screwed-up bond between a human and a Kryptonian yet.

...Although he hadn't read any of those warning-labeled 'just that disturbing' restricted files yet. So maybe he shouldn't jinx himself.

Actually, no. He wasn't going to think about that at all. That was depressing.

Clark was in the kitchen and halfway through cooking things for Lex, and reaching for utensils and plates before he froze in place, mind reeling.

Because it had finally occurred to him that he couldn't just bring Lex up to the kitchen and have him eat up there. If he did that...

...Lex would be even angrier when Clark forced him back down into the cellar again afterwards.

Because Clark couldn't just keep him in the house, because he'd run away. And, because if he let Lex out even sometimes, when Lex was out he'd cause as much trouble as possible. Or, he might just pretend to be getting along, thinking he could trick Clark into letting him out for longer, for 'privileges' or something, because the way he'd been talking before, he'd sounded like he'd thought Clark was acting as his jailer or something.

...Except pretending wouldn't work because Clark would be able to tell that through the bond if he concentrated, and if Lex was focusing on trying to get _around_ Clark instead of working _with_ him, this wouldn't work **at all**. Lex as his familiar needed to treat him like his Kryptonian, or at _least_ think of Clark as a friend, _not_ an **enemy**.

Overall, it would probably be better to make him stay down there until Clark could trust him to not run away, and just let him out, period, once he could.

If he could. Ever.

Which made Clark cringe, but what else could he do?

He grimaced and pulled down a serving tray, and started rearranging things on it.

He poured out a large glass of milk, and spooned out a big helping of the mashed potatoes. He pulled the chicken-and-brocolli casserole out of the oven and added some of that, too. Then he pulled out the apple pie, cut Lex a slice, and added napkins and the usual knife, fork, and spoon.

He stared at the tray. He didn't think he was missing anything.

He looked over at the casserole cooling on the counter and grimaced. He wasn't hungry. If anything, his stomach felt like it was doing backflips, and definitely not in a good way.

He picked up the tray and headed for the storm cellar. Maybe Lex would be more open to listening to him about the magic stuff if he fed him? Clark usually felt less cranky after he'd eaten something...

...aaaaaand Lex was too angry about the getting-chained-to-the-floor thing to want to talk about magic right now. Okay. Clark could get that.

He also looked and sounded really tired, and Clark _had_ dragged him around a bit, after he'd had a long plane flight, and a couple super-stressful weeks.

So Clark decided to leave him alone and let him eat in peace, because staying nearby obviously wasn't helping anything at all.

So he trudged up the cellar steps and closed the storm cellar doors and locked Lex in -- just in case -- and then wandered back over to where he'd been squatting above Lex before -- as close as he could get to him without Lex noticing -- to think.

The idea that he might not be able to make any progress at all, or only make things worse, if he let Lex out of the storm cellar before he was willing to listen to him and at least not run away... well, it just hadn't occurred to him before. Originally, he'd only not wanted Lex in the house for awhile until he'd, well, _Lex-proofed_ things (removing the phone was a start). He'd only thought of maybe only locking Lex down in the cellar while he slept so he couldn't run away, because Clark could catch him before he got anywhere -- and set Clark off -- if he was awake, but if Lex got a good head start while Clark was asleep...

If he stayed in the house, there was also the problem of hat Clark would do if anybody came to visit, because until he figured out a good way to keep Chloe or Lois or, god help him, the _League_ from snooping around and finding out that he was there...

He _didn't_ want the League to get ahold of Lex. That would be bad. Very, very bad.

At first, he'd at least thought that he might be able to bring Lex into the house sometimes, but with the way Lex already wasn't listening to him... if Lex didn't believe him when he brought him into the house for stuff and said why he had... Well, that would be a disaster, even more than the whole problem of how Lex would react when he'd have to bring him back down to the cellar again. (At the very least once a day when he slept, because he had to sleep sometime.) The cellar was supposed to be a temporary measure while he got stuff ready. But now, the more he thought about it, the more he realized that any time out of the cellar before Lex was ready to work with him would just make him belligerent and try that much harder to get away, or hurt him, or fight him harder, or worse.

Which, if their most recent conversation was any indication of how things were gonna go, meant that Lex would probably have to stay down in the cellar for a really long time, like a couple weeks. Maybe more.

Because if Clark let him out sometimes before he knew Lex wasn't going to run away, Lex would know that the option for not staying in the cellar existed, and If Lex knew that, then Lex would push back, and push back hard. Because Lex wasn't going to like going back in whenever that happened; he might even view it as a punishment or something.

Which was totally unacceptable, because that wasn't what Clark was trying to do. Clark's decision as to when he brought Lex in and out of the cellar shouldn't be something that had anything to do with how 'good' or 'bad' Lex was being. It should only have everything to do with whether Clark could trust Lex not to run away yet, whether Clark needed to be able to do something without worrying about Lex running away when his back was tuned, or whether someone might find out Lex was staying at the farm.

But. If that wasn't an option, and Lex was going to need to stay down in the cellar all the time until he didn't... that was totally unacceptable, too. It was a storm cellar. It was for storing things in, and hiding in to ride out tornadoes. It was not for living for an indefinite period of time in.

He used X-ray to watch Lex finish eating his dinner. Lex really looked tired. Really, really tired. Like he might fall asleep any second. And Clark hated the idea of Lex just huddling in on himself and falling asleep in the cold and the dirt down there. At the very least, he ought to get a bed.

And at that thought, Clark frowned, because Lex hadn't slept all that well in the beds at the farmhouse when he'd stayed over with that whole thing with Lucas and the IRS so many years ago. If he had to sleep in the cellar, he at least ought to get to sleep on his own bed--

...oh.

Clark stood up and sped off to the mansion.

He looked around, found what he was looking for in storage, and then realized that he should probably get Lex's dishes from him first.

He sped back, got the doors unlocked and opened, and took Lex's tray from him.

Lex complained about how long he'd been away -- which seemed silly, because he hadn't finished that long ago -- and sped the tray back into the house, leaving the storm cellar doors wide open.

It was night, and they were out on the edge of town and then some. Nobody was gonna see anything.

He sped back to the mansion, quickly checked Lex's bedroom, then took a little time to find a mattress that matched the one Lex was currently using.

He picked out a mattress and box spring, tucked one under each arm, and sped off.

He took the steps at normal speed, not wanting to startle Lex. He also remembered his mom always saying it was polite not to speed out of a room unless you were in the doorway, at least. Since he'd noticed that his mom and Lex seemed to have the same manners -- maybe it was a Metropolis thing? -- he thought he should probably stick with that.

He plopped the boxspring down on the floor first carefully, right up by the wall, and close enough that Lex could lay out on it with the length of chain he had on him, and then put the mattress down on top of that.

He frowned at it a bit, and realized that if he was going to get Lex a proper bed, he should definitely get him the sheets he was used to, too, and the same pillows.

He went for the sheets first.

When he got back, Lex needled him about the bed, which he'd recognized, as Clark made it up with the sheets.

Clark stifled an eyeroll, and had to explain to him that yes, it was Lex's bed, no, he wasn't stealing it, and no, he _really wasn't stealing it_ , he was only moving it a little closer so Lex could use it better.

He tossed Lex his pillows and made him do the pillowcases, because Clark wasn't a maid, and he didn't want Lex getting any ideas, because Clark might feel bad about the necessity of locking Lex up down here, but it was Lex's own fault for being a jerk and trying to use the Orb on him and fighting him every inch of the way. If he'd just listened to him, even once...

Clark shook his head as he walked back up the stairs and took in a deep breath. He reminded himself that it wasn't completely Lex's fault, that he should have figured out how to talk to Lex before this, and that this whole thing was stupid.

He felt his new and much stronger bond finally begin to settle a bit, feeling much less twangy, which he'd always recognized as a warning sign.

It took him a lot longer than usual.

Standing on the grass above what Clark was beginning to think of as his 'Lex spot', Clark rubbed his forehead with the palm of his hand and tried to think of _what next?_

...It was probably going to get cold down there, so Lex would need blankets.

He doubted that Lex had anything at the mansion that was nearly as good as his mom's blankets, so he went and got a couple of those from the house.

He brought them down and finished making up the bed, and had to explain to the Lex where those were from, too.

And then had to deal with a stubborn Lex, who refused to get on the bed because he'd rather sit on the floor and stay dirty.

But when Lex finally stood up and said, "What, no pajamas or a shower?" Clark blinked.

"There isn't a shower down here," Clark told him, "or a tub." He frowned a little, realizing that he'd have to do a lot more than get Lex a bed to make things more livable down here. There was the small bathroom in the corner that his mom had all but demanded they put in after she found out that some tornado storms lasted for a day or more, but...

"But I guess I could get you some pajamas and stuff," he ended, because that was more than reasonable, and Lex had a point. Clark needed to stop thinking of this as 'how can I keep Lex as contained as possible so he can't escape?', and more like 'how can I make this as livable as possible for Lex in the meantime until he starts listening to me and I can explain everything so this isn't necessary?'

He searched the house for supplies, and when he finally started thinking of it like 'what would Lex need if he was staying in a hotel room?' he ended up with towels, a washcloth, soap, a new toothbrush and toothpaste (because Clark sometimes wasn't all that careful in the mornings, so bought extras) and then took a quick trip to the mansion for the requested pajamas. He stopped at the top of the cellar steps for a second, thought about what he might still be missing, and then sped back to the mansion for some slippers, too -- it was a dirt floor. Lex shouldn't be walking around barefoot, and he definitely wouldnt want to.

He carefully handed everything over to Lex, and then pulled apart the metal he'd clamped around each wrist that he'd also welded the chains onto. Lex needed to be able to move around more to use the bathroom.

When Lex just stood there, Clark realized that maybe he didn't know where everything was, or hadn't recognized it. "The bathroom's over there," he explained with a gesture.

Lex turned his head and looked. He frowned and glanced back at Clark.

Clark really didn't know what he was waiting for, and Lex's sudden hesitance was kind of starting to freak him out a little. "Go on."

Lex finally went.

He walked his way over, and definitely wasn't his usual certain self doing so. Clark used X-ray to watch him in the bathroom, and started feeling weird, just standing there waiting.

He glanced around, remembering that there were a couple of extra folding chairs and tables and stuff that they'd stored down here awhile ago, and went and got himself one of the chairs. He kept half an eye on Lex as he did that, and brught his full attention back to Lex once he'd sat down. He wasn't gonna put anything past Lex. He was smart, and Clark wasn't going to underestimate how easy it might be for him to escape, get out, and run away from him.

And he was really gonna need to explain the magic stuff to him first. He obviously wasn't going to believe the familiar stuff before that, and he definitely wouldn't believe how bad running away would be if he didn't understand or believe the familiar stuff.

Lex wasn't stupid. But Clark knew that he wasn't going to want to stay put, with Clark, unless he had a very good reason to want to.

And he wouldn't believe that reason until he understood everything else. If Clark tried... Lex would probably think Clark was threatening him, when what he was really trying to do was to keep him safe, and the both of them sane.

Clark didn't want to kill him, accidenally or on purpose.

He was his familiar. His _kei-falloi_. They were _supposed_ to get along, support each other, be together.

They weren't supposed to kill each other. Hate each other. Fight like this.

...No. No. Things _would_ get better. They had to, they just had to.

Except that they probably wouldn't.

Clark swallowed hard, and tried not to hunch over in his chair. He had to at least try. Even if it probably wouldn't work.

Even if it was probably so broken that...

Lex walked out of the bathroom corner and looked startled for a second, then went slightly pale; Clark wasn't sure why. He walked over and dumped his dirty clothes and towel and stuff into Clark's lap.

Clark stood up and put the clothes down in the chair with a sigh, realizing that he should, would, probably _had_ to put Lex back in the chain-cuffs again, because letting him roam around when Clark wasn't around... that might be almost as bad as bringing him up to the house, and then bringing him back down here.

"Okay, c'mon," said Clark.

"'C'mon' what?" Lex said, crossing his arms and acting like he didn't know.

Clark frowned. "I need to put the cuffs back on you before I--"

Lex bolted for the stairs.

Clark was stock still for almost a full half-second in shock before he reached out a hand and grabbed Lex by the shoulder.

Lex's feet nearly went out from under him.

Clark pulled Lex back towards him, and then had to catch Lex's left fist as he nearly hit him.

 _What the heck?_ thought Clark, as Lex snarled at him and tried to hit him again.

Clark quickly got him in a submission hold before he hurt himself -- if he actually connected with Clark, he might break his hand. Or a foot.

Lex twisted like a snake, and shrieked curses like a farmer's wife who'd caught the barncats in the milk.

Clark was completely freaked out by this. When he'd been grappling with Lex for almost a minute, and Lex was showing no signs of tiring -- if anything, he'd been kicking and carrying on even worse the longer it went on -- he lifted Lex up and carried him over to the bed, and held him down on the mattress, so at least he couldn't hurt himself that way.

Lex was still struggling once Clark got him onto the bed, struggling and cursing, but still not stopping. The mattress was only restricting his movement.

The only thing Clark could think of to do was get the cuffs back on his wrists so he could try and hold Lex down better, because he only had two hands to try and restrain him.

The first wrist, and the first cuff, were hard. Clark practically had to sit on him to get him to stay still, because he'd needed both hands to bend the metal around properly. The second cuff was even harder to manage.

But as soon as Clark got the second cuff back on his wrist, Lex... stopped.

He was glaring bloody murder up at Clark, but he'd stopped. He'd stopped fighting, stopped cursing, stopped everything.

Clark was more than a little freaked out by this.

He slowly, very slowly, stood back up, slowly backed off, and Lex sat up. He didn't make any move to begin doing _that_ again.

Then he slipped his feet out of his slippers, pulled his legs up to the bed, and turned his back to Clark.

Clark stared at him for awhile in total disbelief, because what the hell had that _been_ , even?

He... just couldn't understand it. He could maybe understand Lex pitching a fit if he'd brought him into the house, and then told him he was taking him back to the cellar, but this...? It didn't matter whether Lex was actually chained to the floor or not while Clark was there. While Clark was there, it was just as impossible for him to escape if he was free. Clark had speed and strength on him. _Lex **knew** this._ He knew this. And Lex knew that he knew this.

And then Clark realized...

_...God, if he acted like this because of going back in the chains, for no reason at all, what would he be like if I took him in the house and then told him I had to bring him back down here?_

And that pretty much clinched it. Clark wasn't going to bring him into the house until he was sure Lex wasn't going to run away, or that he wouldn't need to chain Lex down or lock him up or anything ever again. Period.

He also wasn't going to unchain Lex unless he asked him to. ...Or had to. He should probably check his wrists at least once a day, to make sure he didn't hurt himself, or cut off circulation, something. God, he wasn't looking forward to that.

Maybe Lex acting like that had just been a one-time thing?

...Yeah, right.

Clark sighed in frustration and ran a hand through his hair, because _why did Lex have to make things so hard?!_

As he turned away, he heard Lex say, "I hope you realize that I can't reach the light-pull, or the bathroom, with the length of chain you have me on."

Clark rolled his eyes as he reached for the light-pull for the single bulb lighting the cellar. He wasn't stupid. But Lex needed his sleep. Clark clunking around in the middle of the night wouldn't help with that. He'd start working on making things more livable tomorrow. And it wasn't like it was his fault that he hadn't done that before he brought Lex down here. He hadn't _planned on_ Lex trying to use the Orb on him! But in the meantime... "If you wake up and need anything, just yell for me."

Lex snorted. "Like you'll hear me and come."

Clark frowned down at him in the gloom. "I will." _Why wouldn't I?_ Why didn't Lex believe even that much?

"Well, I very much appreciate your faith in me, Clark, but I really can't yell loud enough for you to hear me from the farmhouse," said Lex, and his tone had been dripping with condescension and sarcasm.

Clark frowned and shook his head, even though Lex still had his back to him. It was unlikely that Lex would need him right when he was cooking something, but... well, hold on, maybe Lex just didn't know how good his hearing was?

Or maybe he did and was just being that way. "Lex, I'll hear you from the farmhouse if you yell. I'll hear you from the fields if you yell," he added, just in case that was going to be Lex's next complaint.

"You'll hear me from the town if I yell?" Lex said, and hello, sarcastic much?

"Lex, I'll hear you from _Metropolis_ if you yell," Clark told him, because there was no way he was going any further away than that while Lex was stuck here, and that ought to settle that.

He turned and walked away, up the stairs and out into the moonlight. He turned around and closed the cellar doors, pulled the chain back through the handles, and then locked the chains together again.

He sighed. He felt really, really tired.

He also didn't want to leave Lex alone.

...or leave him, period.

Clark ended up grabbing a sleeping bag from the camping supplies in the attic, and a pillow from his bed, and camping on on the grass under the night sky, right above 'Lex's spot', and wishing he could get closer. That Lex wouldn't mind letting him in, even just a little bit.

Eventually, he fell asleep.

~*~*~*~*~*~

Clark woke up the first day... second day? Yesterday had been the first night, anyway... He woke up and didn't want to move.

Moving would involve moving farther away from Lex. ...and this bond was really screwing with his motivation.

He told himself firmly that getting up to make breakfast would get him _closer_ to Lex, becuse he'd have to bring said breakfast down to Lex and watch him eat, and that was enough for him to get up, grab his sleeping bag, and make for the house.

Clark made fresh-squeezed orange juice, and bacon, and scrambled eggs with green peppers and olives in them, which he knew Lex also liked. He made toast with his heat-vision and buttered it.

He made up two trays -- one for Lex, and one for him -- and brought them out to the storm cellar.

And then he looked over at the storm cellar with his X-ray vision and realized that Lex was still asleep.

Crud.

Then he mentally facepalmed. It was five a.m. _Of course_ Lex wasn't gonna be awake.

Clark sighed and grumbled quietly to himself, and sat down in the grass nearby and ate both breakfasts, now that he was hungry, because he'd skipped dinner and was finally feeling it, and unless Lex woke up in the next few minutes, it probably wouldn't keep.

He took the dishes back to the house, and then realized that he probably ought to shower and change clothing, too. So he did that, then tentatively went out to the fields and sped through his chores -- well, technically _farm work_ now, since he was the only one caring for the place these days -- as quickly as possible, to kill some time.

He really glad that Shelby was staying with his mom in D.C., because he really didn't want to be devoting any time to anyone or anything other than Lex right then, and he was already having enough trouble concentrating on doing routine stuff by rote as it was.

He kept an ear on Lex's heartbeat, though, and when he heard it start to speed up, he finished up what he was doing in a hurry -- fixing fences -- and got back to the house.

He made up more of the same, put together two new trays -- he could always eat more, and it would be an excuse to spend time with Lex, plus if he was eating then maybe Lex would spend less time talking and more time eating, too -- and headed for the storm cellar.

He juggled the trays carefully and got the doors open with a little super-speed, no problem.

He trotted don the stairs just as Lex rolled over, blinking up at his with a look of almost puzzlement.

"Breakfast?" he asked, offering out the tray.

Lex just sort of blinked at him.

Clark frowned, then remembered the light was off.

He clicked it on with superspeed and grabbed the tray before it fell, then offered the tray to Lex again.

Lex slowly reached up and took it from him. He lowered it down onto his knees.

...Well, now or never.

Clark turned around and sat down on the edge of the bed, only about two feet away from Lex.

Lex sort of glanced over at him, but didn't react other than to pick up his fork.

_Oh, thank god!_

Relieved, Clark dug in.

After awhile, Lex asked dourly, "I don't suppose I could get french toast instead?"

Clark paused mid-chew, and glanced over at Lex.

He got a strong feeling that Lex was testing him somehow.

Well, Clark wasn't going to wait on him hand-and-foot, and he definitely wasn't going to let Lex trick him into letting him get away with demanding all sorts of exotic foods and stuff to eat just to mess with him. Nuh-uh. No way.

Even if Clark wanted to, and had the money to do it, somebody might notice him buying weird stuff and figure out Lex was at the farm. Lex was more than sneaky enough to do something like that.

So Clark stuck with something that his mom always said, which fit the situation perfectly.

"Sorry, I don't do requests," he said, and chomped down on another mouthful of scrambled egg.

"...Well, do you at least do seconds?" Lex asked with a raised eyebrow, and Clark looked down at his plate.

Oh.

"Uh, yeah. Sure," said Clark, setting down his tray to take Lex's plate. That was more than reasonable, right? And he didn't want to starve him.

Lex took the toast off of it, and Clark asked, "More toast, too?"

"Mm."

Clark assumed that was a yes.

Clark went off back to the house, made up some seconds for him, and trotted back down.

"Here," he said, handing him his plate back.

Lex took it and picked up where he'd left off.

"If you ever want more, just let me know, okay?" Clark said, just to be sure it was clear that he wasn't trying, or wanting, to starve him or anything.

"Mm."

Clark finished up his own meal and waited while Lex finished up, too.

When Lex handed over his tray, he asked, "I don't suppose I get any snacks between meals?"

Clark pretty much figured that that fell into the same category of 'not taking requests', because Lex would probably have a lot to say about the snacks he wanted to get, too. So Clark shook his head and said, "It's not a good idea." Then he thought quickly and added, "You might get ants down here while I'm away. It's not like there's anyplace to store leftovers."

Lex looked around, and Clark realized that he was noticing the complete lack of wall outlets. He couldn't set up a refrigerator down here if he tried, and he definitely didn't have the money or wherewithal to buy one. Lex didn't need one anyway. All he had to do was ask, and Clark would get him more food. Lex didn't usually eat between meals anyway -- not unless he missed them, and he wouldn't be, with Clark around.

"Holler if you need anything," Clark said as he left, then winced because that was waaaay too open ended.

But Lex just let out a huff of breath and turned away.

Clark was in the farmhouse and about three-quarters of the way through the dishes when he heard Lex mutter something to himself, and he smacked himself in the forehead.

He cleaned the dish soap bubbles off his face and hands and raced back to the cellar.

Then Clark smacked himself in the forehead again and made a quick detour to the mansion for day clothes, and new towels and a washcloth from the house.

"Um, Lex?" Clark called down to him as he came back down the stairs, wincing at himself, because how stupid was he, really? _Way to go Clark, you're really taking care of him, there._

Lex just looked up at him from his prone position on the bed, then smirked at him. He sat upright and held up his hands. "If you please."

Clark set the clothes and stuff down on the bed and undid the cuffs, and Lex slipped his feet into his slippers, scooped up what Clark had brought down, got up, and walked over to the bathroom area.

Clark sighed and contemplated getting out the folding chair again to sit on, then thought that Lex might read something weird into that and just sat down on the bed to watch him with X-ray.

When Lex walked out of the bathrom corner, he carried his clothes and towels over and dropped them down onto the bed next to Clark.

Clark looked up at him.

He stood there for a moment, suddenly glaring at Clark, arms crossed.

And then he spun in place and bolted for the stairs.

Clark stood upright, moved in front of him at-speed, and grabbed him by both wrists.

Lex started fighting him, just as desperate and angry as he had been the night before, if not worse.

Clark, totally not happy that he was dealing with this again, tossed Lex down onto the mattress, then immediately flipped him over onto his stomach and got a knee on Lex's back.

He bent the cuffs back around Lex's wrists again right before Lex got his breath back. Barely.

Lex squirmed around onto his side as Clark lifted his weight off of him, and he glared up at him like he wished Clark would just die right on the spot.

And then he sat up and brushed himself off, looking composed and acting like nothing had even happened. Just like the night before.

Clark was unnerved.

He scooped up the towels and Lex's pajamas and beat a fast retreat.

He double-checked to make sure the chain was locked together good and tight on the cellar doors before he walked away again, back to the house, and he still felt jittery about leaving Lex there on his own, able to do _whatever_.

Clark tossed the dirty laundry into the hamper by the washer and dryer as he walked past and made for the kitchen.

He managed to finish up the dishes without breaking anything, and then he turned around and collapsed onto a stool at the kitchen table, feeling utterly drained.

He really didn't get it.

_Why had Lex--?_

Clark could've _maybe_ understood it if Lex had walked sort-of close-by, back sort-of _near_ the bed, and then maybe chucked the laundry at his _head_ and _then_ made his run for it. That might've got him a few extra seconds while Clark batted the dirty laundry off of him. But Lex had gotten right up next to him, returned it like a normal person, and _then_ started to run.

The thing was, it almost felt like a game, what Lex had done. Like, 'I'm going to walk right up to you, and I know that I can't get away like this, but I'm going to make you catch me anyway!' Like a tease. Like he didn't want to get away.

But Lex had been mad as hell and completely serious about getting away. He'd fought him, and meant it. He'd really _tried_.

\--even though it had been totally futile, and he hadn't really been trying to get away, because he couldn't have been, because he'd walked right up next to Clark and started from a dead standstill like a game of demented two-person duck-duck-goose.

This was giving him a headache.

Clark shivered, and held his head in his hands, and took a deep breath in and slowly let it out.

"Okay," he said quietly. "Okay."

He _really_ didn't want to have to do this very often. Once a day was already almost too much.

...Maybe Lex was just really pissed off about having to basically ask permission to use the bathroom?

Clark reached over and grabbed a pencil and paper from the counter next to the phone, and he started writing himself a list. He needed help getting his thoughts straight.

The first thing was: Problems.

The second thing was: Things to fix?

Under "Problems" he added, "Lex fighting me when chains need to go back on" and "Lex can't reach the bathroom without me taking off the chains".

Under "Things to fix?" he added, "make it so Lex doesn't need to have the chains off very often" and "make it so Lex can reach the bathroom with the chains on". Then he frowned slightly and added "and use it" to the second one.

He tapped his pencil against the pad and jiggled his knee nervously.

Then he blinked, realized what he was actually feeling, and got up from the table.

He resettled down on his 'Lex spot', sitting in the grass. _Better._

Clark wrote down in the second column, "make chain longer?" Then he absently bit his lip and added, "move shelves further back?" because he had plenty of chain in the barn he could scavenge, way more than he needed for hauling things like the tractor engine out of its chassis and stuff like that -- he didn't need to have so much extra length to wrap around all the pulleys and things that everyone else without his strength needed for leverage. But if he gave Lex more length to move around, and he got ahold of anything on those shelves... Clark wouldn't put it past Lex to be able to make a chain-melting acid out of hoarded snack foods, spit, and pure spite, like a couple apples and pretzel sticks and gummi bears or something. He didn't want to _think_ about what he might be able to do with a couple of cans of paint and some real turpentine. Build a bomb?

Actually, didn't they still have some leftover dynamite down there from the last time his dad had needed help blasting a stump out of the ground?

Clark shuddered. He was gonna have to move that. Or get rid of it. Getting rid of it would be better.

Then he added, "move chain next to bathroom?" and "move bed?" as an alternative, because that might be a lot easier and safer at keeping Lex contained, and he'd need to add less chain...

Then he had to stop and shake his head at himself. He shouldn't be thinking about what would be conveinent for _him_ , he should be thinking about what was convenient for _Lex_.

And Lex probably wouldn't like sleeping so close to the bathroom.

He also frowned and considered how much chain he'd have to add, even if he moved Lex's bed right up against the stack of boxes that made up the makeshift wall for the bathroom. He realized that he'd still either need to move the shelves near that corner farther away, or remove the box-wall from the bathroom and keep the chain nearly the same length.

It also occurred to him that if Lex had really wanted his bed closer to the bathroom, or thought that the shorter chain was okay, he could've suggested that to Clark that morning, or the night before.

It was probably also a bad idea to move Lex's bed around on him. All the Kryptonian familiar-taming books had said that consistency was important, especially things like where they sleeped. Plus, Lex was a person. He should have at least _some_ control over where his bed got to be, even if he had to stay cooped up down in the cellar where he couldn't run away, until he wouldn't.

...Lex liked to pace sometimes, too. It'd probably be better if he gave him as long a chain as possible, just not one long enough to get too close to the cellar door. (And no, having two chains on him was _not_ overkill. Lex had gotten kidnapped enough times, and escaped enough times on his own, that Clark was _not_ being paranoid about this, he was being _practical_.)

But giving Lex a little more chain couldn't hurt.

He bit his lip, glanced down under his feet at the space below him with X-ray, and considered the distances.

Then he thought about the different ways he could rearrange the shelving.

He let out a breath -- _okay, this can work_ \-- then brought his head up and started sketching.

He worked out that he could move all the closest shelves around and end up with two rows of shelves, in a sort of double hallway. It would be a lot more efficient, a better use of the space. ...sort-of. The rest of the miscellaneous stuff nearby he could just shove to the other end of the storm cellar -- it was almost as wide on the other side of the stairs, and even less well-organized. Clark could easily make some more shelving for the other side to hold things, and clean up the whole place at once. He could get a whole bunch of stuff out of the way and make it easier to get to at the same time as he got Lex a lot more space. This could work...
    
    
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He made himself some notes on what he'd need to make, and how, and where everything would go, and remembered that he'd thought of making it like a real living space for Lex down there, and, well, if he was actually setting aside the space...

 _...okay, so what would Lex need in a hotel room?_ he thought to himself. (Clark kind of refused to think of it like a house or apartment or anything more permanent, because he didn't want to think of the storm cellar as needing to _be_ permanent for Lex.)

No refrigerator, because he'd already said no to that, and he didn't want Lex hoarding things anyway. If he wanted to put one in, he'd have to string another power line over and in, and he really didn't want to think of what Lex might be able to do with that much electricity. ...Refrigerators also had chemicals in them to help make stuff cold-- okay, _definitely_ no, he was glad he'd said no before, and if he'd said yes then Lex would have seen it as a capitulation or something anyway, since Lex was treating him like an enemy right now. Lucky for Clark, he'd read the Art of War and a couple of the other things Lex had mentioned years ago, so he wasn't gonna forget what he'd learned and let Lex get confused over stupid stuff like that first-thing, thank you very much.

The bathroom was mostly fine, but he should probably take down the wall of boxes before Lex realized that those were basically wooden planks and nails, if he hadn't already, because he knew that the first thing Lex would try to do would be to take them apart once he could reach them. He could put up a longer piece of canvas on a rod or hooks or something, maybe hang a bent pipe from the ceiling as a track, and let Lex use that as a curtain or something.

...Lex had said something about taking a shower, though, so he should probably put in some bathtub or shower.

Clark bit his lip again and thought. ...A shower was probably out. Not enough water pressure, and the only water that ran into the storm cellar to the bathroom area was cold. It came straight from the same line as the main pipeline they used to water the fields. Lex wouldn't want to be taking cold showers, no way. And he couldn't put in a hot water heater without (a) getting a new one, and (b) running a lot of extra line out from the house, either electricity or gas. He didn't have the money for that, and even if he did, somebody would notice and probably start asking questions. Like why Clark had gotten a new water heater when the old one was only a couple years old, a replacement after the house had gotten trashed in the meteor shower, and should only need repairs, not replacement. Nobody would ever put a hot water heater in a storm cellar, just for tornado weather.

No, a shower was definitely out. But Clark could put in a tub pretty easily. All he'd have to do would be to run another junction off the line that already went to the sink and the toilet for an intake, and the drain lines for the toilet and sink were small, but the pipe they sank into was pretty darn big and went to the old septic tank system they'd used to have for the house, before they'd run the sewer lines out as far as the farmhouse.

It had happened sometime before Clark had been born, but his dad and Hiram Kent had decided to keep the old system instead of removing it, just disconnected the house. They'd decided to hook up the storm cellar to it and put in the small bathroom when his mom had moved in, found out what the storms were like out in the countryside sometimes, and complained.

Clark was kind of glad that his 'city-girl' mom had complained, now. It was making his life a lot easier.

A cold-water bath would also suck, but it wouldn't have to be cold. Lex knew he had powers now -- Clark could use heat-vision on the water. Lex probably only showered once a day like most people, so if Clark just set it up in the morning or evening for him, or if Lex filled it and just let him know when... Yeah, a tub should work out just fine.

Okay. Now he needed to figure out where he could get an extra tub. --Maybe the junkyard? Probably wouldn't ask too many questions, since people made moonshine all the time. He might need to refinish it, though. Probably be best if he got a porcelain one. He could get the extra piping at the same time; that stuff went cheap at the junkyard, so it got used for all sorts of odd stuff around the farms in the area, and Clark was almost out of their spare stockpile of the stuff. He could buy in bulk.

Hmmm, what else? ...Oh, right, he'd need to extend the bathroom floor area out. It wouldn't do any good to have the tub just sitting in dirt; if Lex splashed any water out by accident, it'd turn into mud. Very ew. They still had a bunch of the same grey-goop floor mix that they'd used in the bathroom the last time the house had gotten trashed. That stuff was more of a sticky leveling mixture that was supposed to have tile sunk into it, but it worked just fine on its own, too.

...Though now that he thought of it, if he got some tile and put it in on top of the grey leveling floor-goop, a tile floor would be better. Tile would dry faster if it got wet, and it would be a lot easier to clean, too. And there were a lot of other reasons that it might be good to have a tile floor down, and not just for Lex to walk on.

Actually, they did have a _lot_ of the grey-goop mix left over. Could he actually put that down over the entire area?

Clark blinked and thought about that. ...Actually, yes, he probably could. He'd have to be careful about the thickness, but... yeah. He should probably dig down into the floor and pour it, instead of trying to pour it on top of everything, though. He'd have to use a few spare two-by-four boards to pour out parts of the floor only a bit at a time and do it in sections, too, so he could put down the tile before it dried. This would be a whole-day job.

Jeez, okay. Today was too soon -- he'd need to get all the supplies together first, including finding some tile, and it might be hard to find enough of the same type from the junkyard that was usable. He'd need to clear the space and move all the shelving; he could do that tomorrow. But he'd need to deal with the entire basement, including new shelving for the other side, too -- he wouldn't be able to do that _and_ the floor tomorrow. He'd have to do the floor the day after that, starting in the morning.

Yeah, that was doable. And once he did that, Lex would be able to move his bed around practically wherever he wanted, without worrying about getting any more dirt on anything. Perfect!

Was there anything else Lex might need?

...Geez, did Clark even need to think about that one? Lex was probably going a little stir-crazy down there. If he'd had a longer chain, he'd probably be pacing right now.

And if there was one thing about Lex's favorite room in the mansion...

Clark was going to have to get him a bookshelf with some stuff to read, at least. He might not be able to grab anything from the mansion library without somebody noticing, but he had a good stock of books himself. He wasn't exactly a bibliophile like Lex was, and some of them he definitely knew Lex had already read before, but some of them he bet Lex hadn't.

He should probably wait to give that to Lex, though -- at least until he got a decent floor down. If those books ended up in the dirt...

...actually, it might be good to wait to give him that until after Lex got past his 'break everything' period. Clark had seen him trash his library once before, on a whim, and Clark didn't want to give him good books just to come back later and find the spines lying all over the place, with all their pages torn out. Assuming Lex was going to do that. Which he might, if he really was as angry as the whole 'I'm going to fight you every time you put those cuffs back on me' thing made Clark think he was.

Clark shivered again, and it wasn't just the image of destroyed books littering a dirt floor that did it.

Right. Waiting on the bookshelf at least a day or two. What else?

...If he was taking down the wooden crates by the bathroom, Lex was going to lose his 'shelf'. --So that meant he needed to add making two small shelves to the list of larger storage ones: one bookshelf, one bathroom table-shelf-thing to hold Lex's stuff, and towels, and things. Maybe an extra drawer underneath for more toilet paper? It wasn't like there was a lot of neferiousness Lex could inflict chained to the floor with extra toilet paper, right?

Huh. While he was at it with the extra canvas for the replacement bathroom 'wall', maybe he should get a bunch more of it. Not having a dirt floor wouldn't help much if the dirt walls were still right there. It'd probably be a good idea to hang them up in front of the moved shelves, too. Lex wouldn't be able to throw things and hit anything on the shelves -- the heavy canvas would get in the way -- and the canvas would also hold in the heat a bit. Yeah, he should probably do that. He could hang them from the 'rafters', from the wooden planks that ran across the ceiling at intervals, and tack the extra length down to the floor with cinderblocks behind them.

He added 'ceiling hooks' and 'lots of canvas sheets' to the list, then tallied it up in his head and made a quick guess as to how many and frowned. They had some extra canvas in the barn, but Clark was going to need to get more.

Oh well, he did have a little money put away for farm supplies still. He couldn't get that from the junkyard, but Fordman's sold it cheap enough when it was used, having bought it back from some of the other farmers in town. Nobody would really think twice about it. Anybody who farmed wheat or corn sometimes used it to help tack down the plastic-sheeted sileage to protect it from the elements, and farmers like Clark could always use some more.

Okay: bed, small bathroom, shelf with books...

Chairs.

Clark frowned. The best he could do would be either wooden or folding chairs. And if Lex got a chair he'd want a table. Either could be dismantled far too easily. The pieces could be used for leverage, too, to pry apart the links of chain or lever out of the floor the spike of metal he'd sunk in to hold them, especially if the chair legs were metal.

Lex wouldn't have a lot to do down there that would need a table and chairs. He could read on his bed just as easily, and it'd be a lot more comfortable, too.

Plus, if he gave Lex a table and chairs, that would imply a place to entertain company. And the time when they'd get used the most would be when Clark came downstairs. That... would imply something really nasty. Like maybe that Lex was stuck waiting on Clark, or had some obligation to treat him like a guest in a home when Clark could come and go whenever he wanted, but Lex couldn't, and... no. Just, no. He wasn't doing that.

Clark sighed, stuck the pencil in the top crease, and flipped the notepad closed around it. That was just about all Clark could think of right then.

Well, except for getting Lex a watch. He'd brought that up.

...It would probably be a bad idea to give him a new one, though. He'd probably end up obsessing over how much time he was spending down there, and end up counting the seconds.

Speaking of the time... Clark should get started on grabbing supplies soon. It was going to be time for lunch in an hour or so.

Clark was breathing a little easier, so he decided to try the junkyard first, and work his way inwards. If he didn't get everything done right away, well... he'd get a second 'dose' of Lex at lunchtime, and maybe be able to venture away from above the storm cellar again for awhile to finish preparations after that.

He stood up, shoved his notepad in his back pocket, and headed for his truck. He'd need it to be able to haul as large a load as he was thinking of away from the junkyard -- at the other end of town -- without suspicion.

He could always drive away onto one of the backroads, use super-speed to unload things like the tub and tile, and drive the empty truck into town and grab the rest of the stuff from Fordman's if he needed to. If he was able to stay away that long, all in one go.

~*~*~*~*~*~

Clark had found a good, sturdy tub at the junkyard, and even some pretty wacky-colored but perfectly serviceable tile. He'd been able to grab a lot of extra wood and some drainpipe, too, but not nearly as much of the pipe as the wood. And not all of it had been of the type he needed. He was going to need to buy some more piping from Fordman's, along with the usual pipe junctions and caulking agent (that stuff went bad pretty quickly), and the miscellaneous hardware he was going to need, hooks and screws and nails and stuff, _and_ the extra canvas. He was also going to need refinishing solution for the tub -- it was nice, but the ceramic had been scoured pretty badly and needed that new coat. And he'd need it by later that afternoon, so he could get it coated right away and it could finish drying overnight so he could install it tomorrow. Two days without a shower was bad enough; he didn't want to make it three if he could help it.

It was a good thing that nobody ever asked questions about how he kept the farm running all on his own. Apparently people had thought that his dad had done all the major work on the farm, even the stuff Clark had usually done or helped with? And since Clark was a 'bright young thing' who was even larger and more muscular and in even better shape than his dad had been...

Well, Clark wasn't about to draw any more notice to himself by correcting anyone on that front.

He'd barely finished up at the junkyard before he'd started to break out in a cold sweat. He'd been shaking by the time he'd pulled the truck into the driveway.

He was lying down in the grass in his 'Lex spot', now, staring up at the sky, and starting to feel almost hu-- Kryptonian again, when he heard a stomach growl, and it wasn't his.

Clark sighed, because he didn't want to move. He wasn't even sure that he _could_ move.

...If he _did_ move, he'd be able to sit right next to Lex for awhile.

He got up and moved.

When he came in the front door and passed the dirty laundry basket on his way to the kitchen, Clark frowned in thought. He could probably get away with continuing to 'steal' Lex's clothes from the mansion for Lex for at least another week or so without anyone noticing anything going missing -- Lex had a _lot_ of clothing.

What to do with it after Lex wore it was another story. If Clark kept Lex's dirty laundry here, and somebody came over and saw it... well, it stood out. Clark didn't own stuff like that. Oliver might not notice it, he was practically label-blind and had probably never looked at a price tag in his life to care about the difference; Chloe or Lois, on the other hand, were another story -- they definitely would.

Thinking about it, Clark figured he could probably get away with hiding a growing bundle of it in the attic for at least a little while -- Clark himself hardly ever went up there; not even Lois would go snooping up there without a darned good reason -- but he'd have to figure out something more long-term if this went on longer than a week or two, and it was _already_ starting to look that way.

Clark threw together a couple ham sandwiches with mayo and swiss cheese and mustard, poured them both some milk, and tossed on some potato salad and apple slices for good measure. Utensils, napkins, and he was carting the two trays out and down into the storm cellar in less than a minute flat.

Clark came down to find Lex sitting on the bed and he had to stifle a grimace -- he really didn't have much length on the chain. He thought about lengthening it that afternoon, then decided against it -- better to just fix it all-at-once tomorrow. If he did it more than once, Lex might think he was going to do it again when he wasn't. It'd seem too arbitrary.

"Wouldn't it be easier if you brought out the dishes on one tray, and all the food on the other?" Lex asked.

"...Because it'd be easier for me to get you seconds?" Clark asked as he walked over.

"I can serve myself," Lex said neutrally.

...This felt like another test.

"No," said Clark. "It's easier to keep the hot stuff hot in the oven, and the cold stuff cold in the fridge, if I just leave it in the house. It doesn't really take much time for me to get it."

"But it does take time."

Yeah, and he bet Lex had probably been trying to time him in how long he took, even without a working watch. "I don't mind."

Clark sat down on the bed next to Lex and tried to hand him the tray, but Lex stood up.

"I'd like to wash up before I eat," Lex told him. "Please remove these." He held out his hands, the chains trailing down from the cuffs.

...Well, that made sense. And it wouldn't hurt anything -- it wasn't like Lex could go anywhere while Clark was there. They both knew that.

Clark set both the trays down on the bed, then turned back and undid the cuffs.

Lex smiled slightly at him, then turned and walked off towards the bathroom area.

Clark sighed as Lex went around the corner, and flopped back on the bed, waiting.

He closed his eyes, just listening to the sounds of him.

Clark heard Lex walk back over, and he opened his eyes, ready to have to deal with Lex running--

\--but Lex just folded his legs up under him and sat down on the bed right next to Clark. He picked up his tray and started eating.

Huh.

Lex wasn't gonna fight with him on this?

...Well, okay. Clark was fine with that. Clark was _more_ than fine with that. It'd be nice if they could go back to the first night, before dinner, when he'd first chained Lex up. Lex had talked at him some, and protested a lot, but he'd been completely rational about it. He hadn't tried to physically fight him, spitting and snarling and clawing and _biting_ like a wild, rabid beast.

Clark slowly sat up and picked up his own tray. He started in on his sandwiches.

There was a flicker of motion in the corner of his eye and the sound of bending metal. _Huh?_

Clark turned to look at Lex, who was holding a bent fork. Clark blinked.

 _Oh,_ he he realized wth a weird remove. _Lex just tried to stab me in the eye._

 _...why did he--?_ Clark stared at him for a split-second, and wondered if he should be angry, and how angry he should be. Because even though Lex might not be able to hurt him...

But then Clark blinked again and realized that Lex looked shocked -- no, _horrified_ \-- and was staring at his hand like it had moved without conscious control.

And it suddenly occurred to Clark that he might not be the only one feeling and doing things that he couldn't completely control.

...Well, he couldn't exactly blame Lex for trying to stab him totally ineffectually, when he was having serious problems with controlling himself, too. So Clark just mentally sighed to himself and gently took ahold of Lex's wrist and plucked the fork out of Lex's hand, because he didn't want to make another trip to the house with Lex untied, and he couldn't eat his potato salad easily without a fork.

Then he held his fingers on either side of the tines at the base, and slid them up to the points of the tips, straightening the metal right out again, good as new.

He wiped the fork off on his shirt -- it was clean enough -- and then held it out for Lex to take back.

Lex stared down at it.

Clark took Lex's hand, gently splayed out his fingers, put the fork in his palm, and then curled his fingers closed around it again.

And then he went back to eating.

Lex stared at him for awhile, but eventually he shoved the fork into the potato salad and began eating again, mechanically. He was mostly silent.

Clark finished before Lex did. He set his tray to the side, then flopped back on the bed and closed his eyes, waiting patiently.

When Lex finished, Clark just lay there for while. He wanted to stay as close to Lex as he could, for as long as he could, and he was having difficulty thinking of what else was so much more important to do...

After awhile, he heard Lex set his tray aside. He also heard sounds of movement, like Lex was sliding farther back on the mattress.

Clark didn't mind. As long as Lex wasn't trying to get away... And it wasn't like Clark was going to fall asleep anytime soon.

Lex shifted, and Clark felt fingers slide through his hair. He let out a very soft sigh.

There was silence for awhile, and then Lex said, "Clark?"

"Hmm?"

"Don't you have work to do?"

Clark opened his eyes slowly and frowned a little. Lex was staring down at him, and he didn't really look happy.

Clark slowly sat up and stifled a grumble. Lex obviously didn't want him to stick around. "You're done eating?"

"Yes."

Clark picked up Lex's tray, then set it down farther out of the way.

And the he used super-speed to get Lex's cuffs back on him without having to hold him down.

It might have been cheating, a little bit.

...The way Lex was glaring at him down, it definitely was.

Clark started to pick up the trays, then noticed how Lex was rubbing at his wrists. "Does it hurt?"

Lex looked up at him slowly. "No."

"Is it uncomfortable?" Clark asked, feeling worried. Then he thought and added, "Do you want me to attach them differently?" Maybe it would be better if he put them on Lex's ankles instead? He should at least get a choice.

"Yes. Differently would be nice."

"How?" Clark said, setting down the trays again.

"Not at all."

Clark gave him a look. "You have to wear them when I'm not down here."

"Do I?" Lex muttered so quietly, Clark was pretty sure he wasn't supposed to have heard him.

"Where would you rather wear them, if you had to?" Clark tried again.

Lex grimaced and looked away, but made a vague motion with his right ankle and then right wrist.

Clark swapped out the second cuff from his left wrist to his right ankle quickly, then picked up the trays. "If you want me to put them back on differently sometime, just let me know."

Halfway to the stairs, he realized that it might be a good idea to somehow let Lex know that mealtimes were meant to be regular. He took a half-second to stop and think of the best way that he could do that, then turned back to Lex and let him know, "We're having meatloaf and baked potatoes for dinner."

And then he left.

~*~*~*~*~*~

Clark got everything still in the truckbed from the junkyard trip into the barn and drove into town without incident. He got through his 'buying spree' at Fordman's for the requisite hardware and metal pipe and other odds and ends, and was working on chucking the last of the "extra" canvas sheeting over the load in the back when Chloe walked up.

Clark blinked. "Oh, hey Chloe."

Chloe gave him an odd look. "Really? Just, 'oh, hey'?"

Clark frowned slightly and shoved the tailgate to the truck bed closed. "Jimmy said something about you being picked up by the Department of Domestic Security because Lex..." Clark trailed off. "Well, he didn't really explain it well," he ended up saying. He didn't think Chloe would like to hear about Jimmy having made a deal with Lex to keep her safe, especially second-hand. "I told Oliver--"

"--yes, and thank you for that, because Jimmy never would have thought to go to him," mostly because (a) he didn't know Oliver and (b) didn't know how to get in touch with Green Arrow, either, let alone that he should. "They're so focused on Lex that it could've been a week before they," -- _read: the League_ \-- "might've realized what had happened."

"Sorry," Clark said, covering a wince.

"It's fine; I gave Oliver a piece of my mind about check-in procedures afterwards," she sighed. "It could've been a lot worse -- they caught up with me en route," and that probably meant they were forgiven, since it had been a little less than a day before she was back in town again. "But it wasn't the DDS that grabbed me," she said, sounding annoyed. "It was _Lex's_ goons."

Clark blinked. "Oh."

"Yeah," said Chloe, looking well and truly pissed off. "Oliver's pretty sure that he knows where they were taking me; someplace in Montana. He's gonna put together a raid of the place," she said, looking at him.

"I can't go," Clark said.

"Clark--"

"No, really. I can't," Clark said. "I've got things to do on the farm--"

"Are you _serious?_ " Chloe said incredulously.

Clark tried not to wince. "Chloe--"

Chloe suddenly stepped in close and stared into his eyes. "Lex didn't _get_ , you, did he?" she said, suddenly very serious.

Clark stared down at her, then slowly leaned away and took a step back. Chloe could be a little scary-intense sometimes.

"No," Clark said truthfully enough, "he's not controlling me. I've got the..." He glanced around. Nobody was really around; it was that weird hour close enough to dinnertime that not many people was out on the streets. "There was this Orb-thing," he told her under his breath. "I've got it now. Lex didn't... get to use it on me."

Chloe looked into his eyes. "But not for lack of trying."

Clark couldn't help but look grim. "No."

"Oliver said you didn't know where he was." It wasn't a question; more an accusation.

Clark looked Chloe dead in the eye. "I haven't seen him in awhile," he said slowly. It was true -- he hadn't seen Lex in almost two hours now.

"But you know what happened to him."

Clark took in a breath. "I know that he wants to get as far away from me as he can," he told her. "And I really don't want to chase him." _No, he's going to stay put. There will be no chasing._

Chloe took in a deep breath and blew it out, looking away for a moment.

"So he knows about you, now," she said neutrally.

Clark winced slightly. "Yeah." He slid his hands into his jacket pockets. "Sort-of. Not everything." _Not yet._ "He's keeping it to himself for now."

"You trust him to do that?" Chloe said, sounding skeptical.

"No," said Clark. "Not exactly. But he can't..." He trailed off, not sure how he could reassure her without explaining.

Chloe gave him a piercing look. "'Can't'?"

Clark looked away and shrugged noncommitally.

Chloe was quiet for awhile. "We could really use your help, you know. With everything," she said, obviously annoyed with him.

"I'm sorry," said Clark. "But I really need to stick close to the farm for now. I just..." He grimaced. "There are some things that I've been putting off that I really need to take care of, before I do anything else."

"Fine," Chloe said, crossing her arms and getting that 'writing you off' look she sometimes got when Clark was being particularly unhelpful. Then she sighed and loosened up a little. "I guess I shouldn't really expect anything different; you're not usually that proactive, and it took you a long time before you started dealing with Veritas." She grimaced almost sympathetically. "I can get why you've been reluctant to go after Lex from the get-go, even when he was getting that... Orb thing to control you. I know I wouldn't want to deal with him, either."

Clark stood there and sighed, trying not to take it personally. "Thanks," he said dourly.

She gave him an intense look. "I guess I should be thankful that you were actually able to stop him."

"It wasn't as hard as it could have been."

"At least tell me you put the thing someplace safe, and not just in the barn," Chloe said, giving him a _look_.

Clark said, obligingly, "Yes, Chloe, I put the thing someplace safe, and not just in the barn." No, it wasn't 'just in the barn' -- he'd stuck it in a lockbox in the bottom of a locked tool chest in the barn. It wasn't exactly out in the open, or easy to get to, and about as safe as it was likely to get anytime soon, outside of him finding a way to destroy it.

"Good," she said.

They both heard -- and recognized -- Jimmy's yell from across the street, and both glanced over towards him.

"I should go," said Chloe, with a slight smile.

Clark nodded. "I'm glad you're okay."

"Me, too." She grinned. "I'll be even more glad when we've caught up with Lex and finished nailing his ass to the floor."

Clark smiled back, close-mouthed, and didn't say a word.

He watched Chloe walk across the street to greet Jimmy, with a smile that was nearly incandescent.

He opened the driver's-side door to the cab, got in, started the engine, and drove back to the farm.

~*~*~*~*~*~

Clark didn't quite have the shakes by the time he got back to the farm, but he definitely was feeling a strong preference to go be near Lex and make sure he was all right. And be near him. And grab him up in a great big hug and not let him go for a really long time, but Lex would probably have something particularly nasty to say about that last one if he tried it.

He gritted his teeth and got the truck unloaded, and got the bathtub sanded, washed out, rinsed, toweled off, and then coated properly and left to air-dry before he had to head for the storm cellar.

He stood above Lex and watched him with X-ray for awhile, fighting the urge to sit down.

Finally, he managed to get himself into the house and speed through getting four pans of meatloaf and a good dozen potatoes in the oven so they'd have something to eat later. He set a timer, then rushed out and more or less collapsed on his 'Lex spot'.

He blinked his eyes open to a setting sun and the sound of the timer going off in the kitchen. He groaned and rolled to his feet.

He brushed himself off as he headed for the house, and forced himself to take his time dealing with getting dinner ready.

He made salad while everything cooled on the countertop, and decided that he was going to need to pick a few things from the garden for tomorrow, and also go talk to one of the neighbors for more meat. The alternative was to go deer hunting or something himself. There wasn't much in the freezer above the fridge in the kitchen, and the two big freezers in the basement hadn't been restocked in awhile.

He debated over whether he should feed Lex some of the jarred or pickled stuff that was still leftover from winter that was stored down there, too, or whether he should go for all-fresh foods. The farm was more-or-less between seasons, and Clark was transitioning the house garden from a winter garden to a spring one. Most of the herbs weren't anywhere close to fully-grown yet, and the new veggies weren't exactly ready yet, either. The orchards wouldn't start producing until the late summer and early fall, and it wasn't quite the right season for any of the wild berries.

Clark sighed as he calculated up his present and future expenses in his head. More money out, and not so much in. ...Well, maybe if he was careful in his bargaining and sold the last harvest of winter wheat for a little higher than he normally asked for, then he wouldn't have to ask his mom to sign for him to get money out of the general farm account at the bank. He'd been dealing with things out of his own personal account for awhile, hopeing he wouldn't have to touch the "reserve," since that was supposed to be going towards the new mortgage they'd taken out on the house from the bank during the election. The money from the mortgage had helped pay for some of the mid-term campaign ads.

Clark got together the trays again -- a hearty helping of meatloaf and two baked potatoes per plate, salad in a big bowl on each to start, along with a glass of milk -- and paused, biting his lip.

He decided to get Lex his clothes first, because that way, if he got Lex everything all-at-once, he wouldn't need to deal with getting the cuffs on and off him as much.

He sped off to the mansion and stopped at the edge of the ground in surprise as he realized that all the lights were off.

He frowned and X-rayed the building. Nobody was around.

Slightly suspicious, he shifted in place uncomfortably and used the different kind of X-ray on it, like peeling back layers.

He blinked as he saw that all the furniture was covered with big white dust cloths. They'd closed up the mansion? But it had only been a couple days...

Clark wondered what was up, but he shook himself out of it. He'd stick with only taking a few things at a time for now, and keep an eye on the situation.

He snuck in and grabbed some nightclothes and underwear and socks for him, and another pair of slippers, just in case. As he left, he glanced back at the laundry room with X-ray, and decided that if he started getting a lot of dirty laundry piled up at the farm, he'd sneak it into the small pile that was still sitting at the mansion -- he doubted anybody would compare mound sizes between now and when they came back, whenever that might be, if it was even the same people working there to notice and know. And it wasn't like anybody would notice in the interim.

He held the new nightly change of clothing under his arm as he picked up a clean towel and washcloth from the farmhouse and tucked that under his arm, too. Then he went out and got the storm cellar doors open, and walked it all down the stairs and over to Lex.

He left it on the bed, went back for the dinner trays, and set them down on the bed next to Lex, too.

Then he went back and closed the cellar doors behind him, just in case. Chloe was in town, after all, and he didn't know if she might be able to see the light from the barn if she came by the farm and parked there.

By the time he came back, Lex had already dug in, and he didn't look particularly approachable. Clark also remembered the whole getting-stabbed thing, and didn't want to irritate Lex further for no reason. So, he decided to give Lex a little space, grabbing one of the folding chairs as he went and pulling it up in front of Lex, a bit out of reach at a little more than a yard-and-a-half away.

He got his tray from the bed, and sat down in the chair to face Lex.

Lex looked up at him, but didn't say anything.

Okay, good. This was probably okay. Not as close as he would've liked to sit if he could, but he wasn't about to complain.

They both ate their dinners. Clark assumed that Lex would have said something if he'd wanted to wash up beforehand first.

Lex asked for seconds and Clark was happy to do so. He ended up getting himself thirds.

They mostly sat in silence. Lex didn't seem to have anything he wanted to talk about, and Clark didn't see any need to bring up what had happened with Chloe. It would have just turned into an argment, and Clark didn't want to fight. It would have been pointless, anyway -- Chloe was okay and none the worse for wear, Lex couldn't do anything else to her while he was stuck here, and Clark wasn't going to tell her where Lex was, so she couldn't try and extract vengeance or revenge or justice upon him, or anything. He even knew why Lex had done it; Jimmy had explained it pretty well. Every part of the whole thing was kind of a non-issue, now.

He watched Lex start to unbutton his shirt as he drained his last glass of milk and set it down on the tray. "Um, Lex," he said, realizing that he couldn't actually get his clothes off with the cuffs on. "Maybe you should let me--"

Lex finished tugging his left arm out of his shirt, and brought his head up. He looked Clark right in the eye, and then delicately held the edge of his right collar between his teeth, grabbed the right sleeve at the armpit with his left hand, and _tore_ the shirt halfway down to the elbow.

"Lex!" Clark yelped, quickly shoving himself to his feet and dropping the tray onto the seat behind him. "What are you--" He managed to get over to Lex and get ahold of his left hand before the second hard jerk tore it any farther down than his elbow. "Stop it!"

Lex spat the collar out of his mouth. "Why?" Lex said, staring Clark right in the eye as Clark knelt in front of him. He looked absolutely incensed.

"It's... it's a perfectly good shirt," Clark said helplessly, not entirely sure what was happening here. Lex didn't do things without a reason, but Clark was starting to wonder if maybe he'd missed a memo somewhere, or something.

"It's my shirt, isn't it?" Lex said, as if he was discussing the weather. But he didn't let go of his hold on the tear.

"Lex--" Clark stopped when Lex's fingers jerked within his hold, and the cloth tore just that much more.

"It's my shirt, and I can do whatever I want with it, can't I?" he continued pleasantly.

Clark clenched his jaw.

Then he slowly let go of Lex's arm.

Lex, not looking away from Clark, jerked his hand and slowly tore the sleeve the rest of the way down to the cuff.

Then he frowned and glanced down at the doubled-over, thicker cloth material at the end of the sleeve. He jerked at it a few times one-handed.

"You done?" Clark asked.

" _No_ ," Lex said peevishly, grimacing as he tried tugging at it yet again. The much stronger stitching held.

Clark reached out with both hands and finished tearing the sleeve apart for him with one quick jerk, then tossed what remained of the now-freed shirt over to the side.

Lex glared up at him.

Clark undid the metal cuff attached to the chain, and quickly checked his wrist to make sure he hadn't hurt himself. He also grimly decided to make sure he always got the cuffs off of Lex before he started trying to undress, from now on.

Lex flinched at his touch, but by the time Clark glanced uo at his face, it was unreadable.

Clark undid the cuff at his ankle, and Lex quickly changed his clothes on top of the bed, right in front of him.

When Lex didn't make any move to get up after doing so, Clark frowned and glanced over at the bathroom. "Is there anything you need?" he asked, wondering if Lex was out of soap or something. When Lex didn't give any response, he tried, "Aren't you going to wash up?"

"No," said Lex, and he barely got out a snarl and a kick before Clark got the metal cuffs back on him again after the 'no'. He huffed out an angry breath, then rolled over and burrowed under the covers as Clark scooped up the remains of the day's clothes and the unused towel and washcloth, along with his tray, before they ended up on the floor.

He heard Lex as he spat out, only slightly muffled, "There's no point in doing so. I can't get properly clean in this filthy place."

Clark breathed out a soft, frustrated sigh and got what he was holding back to the house. He came back for his own tray, and picked up the folding chair as well.

He turned out the light as he walked by, and folded the chair and left it leaning against a shelf near the stairs before he went up.

He reclosed and locked the cellar doors, and got his own tray inside too.

He frowned all throughout washing the dishes, and decided to save everything else for morning.

He pulled the torn shirt out of the laundry basket, then tossed it back in again. Somehow, he doubted any of Lex's usual staff would care one way or the other that Lex might've torn something, let alone how, even if Clark did eventually put it back in the mansion for somebody to find. The people he'd gotten after Lana moved out were pretty cold, whenever he X-rayed the mansion to keep track of things, or saw them around town -- they'd probably just throw it out, replace it, and not think much of it.

He grabbed up his sleeping bag from the corner on the way to the door, flicked off the lights, and let the doors swing shut behind him. He didn't even bother with a pillow.

He made his way back over to the storm cellar, and spread out the sleeping bag over his 'Lex spot'.

He undid the laces on his boots and squirmed back into the bag, just like he had the night before.

And that was the end of his day.

~*~*~*~*~*~

Clark woke up to dawn's first light, slowly spreading out across the sky to stain it from black to red, and then eventually light blue.

He sighed and forced himself upright.

He shoved his feet into his boots, grabbed up his sleeping bag, and headed for the barn.

He tossed the sleeping bag onto a clear workbench, and walked over to the bathtub. ...Good, it had dried all right. The new finishing coating on it seemed okay, too.

He decided to forgo two breakfasts that day, and just wait until he heard Lex waking up before starting to make anything. Instead, he worked on getting a new shelf-cabinet made up for the bathroom. He was going to need it pretty soon; Lex would need it, if Clark moved both the shelves and crates today.

He got the new freestanding piece of furniture for the bathroom made up first, sanded, cleaned off, and shellacked, before he went on to the main work: more shelving for the other end of the storm cellar.

He got the new 'industrial' shelving for straightening up the opposite end of the cellar made up easily enough without a hitch.

When he heard Lex's breathing shift, Clark went into the house, and got Lex's clothing and the unused towel and washcloth from yesterday first.

He trekked over to the storm cellar doors and got them unlocked, unbarred, and open, and trotted down the stairs.

He pulled the pull-string on the lightbulb as he passed, then set the bundle of clothing down next to Lex on the edge of the bed, towel on top. After Lex had rolled over, blinking himself awake, Clark was already crouched down to undo the metal cuffs when Lex said, with marginally less bite than the night before, "I thought I told you that I couldn't get properly clean like this."

Clark stopped for a moment. He glanced over at the pile. He looked up at Lex.

He said, "Would another towel help?"

Lex stared at him for awhile.

"Two more towels," he said.

Clark stood up, went back to the house, and got him two more towels.

Then he undid the cuffs.

Lex eyed him, but stuffed his feet into his slippers (the first pair) and made his way over to the bathroom area.

He came back and dumped the pajamas and two used towels and such on the bed. He held onto a towel that still looked unused.

Clark picked up one of the cuffs and Lex's lips curled up into a sneer. He clutched at the towel and twisted away as Clark grabbed him.

Clark managed to get the dirty laundry out of the way so Lex didn't end up sprawled in it when he held him down on the mattress, this time.

He sighed and plucked the 'spare' towels out of Lex's arms, while he was at it.

"I need that," Lex told him flatly, glaring at Clark as he pulled his legs up onto the bed, under him, leaving the slippers on the floor.

"You need it? ...For what?" Clark asked, but he only got a stronger glare.

Yeah, no, he wasn't going to let Lex hold onto something if he wasn't even going to give him a single reason why. He bundled it up with the rest of the stuff and headed back up the stairs, and heard Lex huff out an angry breath before collapsing back on the bed.

Clark went back to the house, dumped the laundry into the dirty hamper, and then realized that he was still wearing the same clothes as the day before.

He went upstairs and changed, then went down to the kitchen and made up some waffles while frying up some bacon. He put a syrup container on Lex's tray, along with some butter. Then he thought for a moment and went down to the basement and broke out a jar of strawberry preserves. He fixed his own up the way he wanted them and ate them in the kitchen before he carted Lex's tray down, laden with food.

Lex looked slightly startled when he showed up again -- he couldn't think why, because he hadn't closed the cellar doors or anything behind him.

Clark handed Lex his tray, then turned around and went back up the stairs.

He decided to work from the opposite end of the cellar over, because he doubted that Lex would want Clark in his new space once he'd lengthened his chain. Not for awhile, anyway. He hoped to be mostly finished by the time Lex was done eating.

He started by moving most of the stuff that he could over to the back wall, and getting the new shelves down the stairs. Then he started cleaning up, finding good places to store everything. He kept the grey-goop for the floor off to the side, ready to be used tomorrow.

He sped through it as his usual working speed, and when he'd finally gotten the one end of the cellar done, he turned to find Lex staring at him with open curiosity.

He blinked, but tried not to feel too self-conscious about the attention. Instead, he just focused on moving the other shelves and such around to get Lex as much space as possible. He decided to save getting the crates making up the bathroom wall 'torn down' and moved out of the way for tomorrow, and hoped that Lex wouldn't think of doing anything with them in the meantime. As it was, some of them were screwed or nailed together, so without any tools Lex shouldn't be able to get anything apart -- that would require taking the whole 'wall' down at once, and the upper boxes had their tops nailed into some of the wooden rafters crossing the ceiling.

When he was done, he had the random piles of things up in the other part of the basement, sorted, the older shelves rearranged in a two-hallway pattern -- walking down the stairs, walking to the opposite wall and entering the 'hallway', and then walking back towards the stairs (with the shelves on either side) to the opening to what was now Lex's part of the storm cellar.

He also had Lex glaring at him like he'd done something wrong.

Clark stifled a sigh and trudged back up the stairs, taking the 'long way' around and down the 'hallway' on purpose. Not that he minded -- it reminded him not to super-speed around down here unless he had to, and it wasn't like he couldn't just pull the one shelf closest to the stairs out of the way and get to Lex that much more quickly if he needed to.

He went and got some of the extra length of chain from the barn, and came back down again.

He crouched down next to the spike of metal he'd shoved down into the floor -- the one that he'd shoved through the last couple of links of Lex's chains, holding them down -- and carefully judged the current lengths, the length of chain he'd brought with him, and how much he needed to add.

He carefully pried the spike out of the floor. He took the ends of the current chains lay them parallel to each other on the floor. He carefully bent open the last two links on each of those chains. He took the new, longer chains and placed two of the links over the bent-open links for each. He bent the links closed again, then took the metal and carefully cinched each of the four joined link-sections together -- it would be a little heavier and not as flexible, but Lex wouldn't be able to get it apart there now.

Then he pulled the 'new' free ends of the chains close to him, and pulled off the few extra links at the end that would give Lex just a bit more leverage than he'd want, if he left it on and Lex decided to try to pull the stake up from the ground by pulling from two sides.

Then he looped the remaining terminal links over and onto the spike, and drove the spike back into the ground again -- just far enough away from the first hole that it should have a solid hold, and just as deep since Lex hadn't seemed to make any progress on it before.

He glanced up at Lex and realized that he was now glaring bloody murder at him.

Clark decided that now would probably be a good time to leave, so he went back up the stairs and closed and locked the cellar doors.

Then he went over to his 'Lex spot', plopped down in the grass, rolled over onto his back, and sighed. He'd been farther away from Lex during that whole 'clean-up' process -- except for the bit at the end with lengthening the chains -- than he was right now lying down above his head.

He stared up at the sky for awhile, debating whether to start on fixing the floor now, or wait 'til tomorrow morning. It wasn't that late in the day, after all, so he could probably get it all done today...

...but with the way Lex had already been glaring at him, he'd probably pitch a fit if he went back down there and moved more stuff around on him. There was also the possibility of it taking more than one day if he wasn't careful, and he really didn't want to have to be stuck in the position where he couldn't let Lex sleep on his own bed because things weren't done and ready yet.

Lex also wouldn't appreciate falling asleep to a floor that was half-dirt, half-livable, Clark bet.

It was probably too much to change at once on him, anyway. It might be better to let Lex actually get to move around for a bit, first, and get some of the nervous energy out of his system. He wasn't going to get to move around much at all for awhile tomorrow, after all.

Clark lay on the grass for the rest of the morning and zoned out, staring up at the clouds. He made lunch and ate it with Lex, who glared at him all thoughout lunch like he'd killed his dog on him, or something. Clark sat across from him on the folding chair just because Lex was being so prickly that he didn't want to know what happened if he tried to sit on the bed next to him again. It just made Clark tired as all get-out, because he'd tried to make things better for Lex in the interim, and all it had done was make Lex even angrier.

Clark wasn't feeling well after that. He ended up leaving the dirty dishes in the sink, listlessly grabbing the sleeping bag from the barn, and dozing off on his 'Lex spot' out in the open, even though it was the middle of the day.

Dinner wasn't much better. Lex wasn't mad anymore, but he was very quiet. He didn't fight quite as much when it came time to change clothing, getting the cuffs back on, and he refused without words to use the bathroom -- both the sink and even the toilet.

"Are you all right?" Clark finally asked as he turned to go, but Lex didn't say anything, just curled inward on himself a little more under the covers.

Clark frowned, worried, as he turned off the light and made his way out of the cellar.

He settled into his sleeping bag that night, wondering if somehow giving Lex more space had made things worse.

He fell asleep hoping that what he was planning on doing tomorrow to make the cellar more livable would be okay.

He turned over and closed his eyes. He didn't even bother to try and dredge up enough optimism to hope that Lex might even like it.

~*~*~*~*~*~

Clark started bright and early the next morning. He couldn't wait until Lex woke up on his own and got up to start -- he wouldn't be able to get it all done in time.

"Here," he said to Lex, handing him a couple bagels with cream-cheese, as he bundled him up, pajamas and all, into the bathroom.

Lex woke up a lot more when Clark pulled the spike out of the floor and tacked in into the bathroom wall instead, on a much shorter length.

"What the hell?" was demanded from him, as Lex even tugged at the spike a couple times, incredulously. "Clark--"

"Put down the lid on the toilet seat and sit there," he told Lex. "This is gonna take awhile."

Lex stared after him as he hurried away.

By the time Clark had moved the shelf closest to the stairs out of the way -- he needed the extra maneuvering room, and the line of sight -- Lex was frowning at him as he chewed at one of his bagels.

Then Clark started tearing down the crates, and Lex started squawking at him, wanting to know what was going on, and something about a lack of privacy. Clark ignored him, and moved the remnants of the crates over to the stairs, along with the one small piece of canvas sheet 'door'.

Clark spread out a large grey plastic tarp down in front of the largest open-area by the stairs, and then went and grabbed up Lex's bed.

Lex squawked at him a bit more, but Clark ignored him. He moved Lex's bed to the tarp, went back for his shoes and slippers -- the only other things he had down here that he wasn't already wearing -- and then headed up the stairs.

He retrieved a big metal bucket, a trowel, and the serviceable tile from the barn back in groups. He dropped it down onto the edge of the tarp.

Then he went and got the shovel.

He carefully scraped up about a inch-and-a-half of dirt all along the floor where he wanted to put down the grey-goop stuff for the tile floor and dumped the dirt into the bucket. He made several trips.

By the time he was done, he was very glad that the dirt in the cellar was no longer riddled with Kryptonite-dust -- he had it all over him.

He more or less ignored Lex's ever-increasing complaints as he worked.

He worked in sections, carefully nailing pieces of the wooden planks from the dismantled crates together, mixing powder with water and pouring the floor solution mixture into the current framework, and then waiting for it to cure long enough to start laying down the sections of tile.

After awhile, Lex's complaints and demands to know what he was doing quieted, when he figured it out on his own.

Then he had to deal with the ever-increasing complaints about how ugly the tile was.

Clark rolled his eyes to himself when Lex wasn't looking.

Clark was almost surprised with himself -- he actually managed to gauge the sizes of the frames close enough that he didn't have to break any of the tiles into pieces to have to sink them into sections that didn't quite fit. He even managed to time it right -- not too soon -- so that removing the wooden braces and moving them and pouring the next piece of floor didn't end up in some sloping, bulging, yucky mess.

He started from the bathroom area and worked his way along the walls and outwards. It really did end up taking all day.

He brought Lex sandwiches once it hit lunch, and got glared at a bit, maybe for lack of side dishes. Clark hadn't wanted to risk Lex tossing things at the still-curing sections, though.

Finally, close to sundown, the floor was finally done and cured. Lots of work, intersperced by long stretches of waiting while Lex complaining of being horribly bored, and now it was over.

Time to clean up and finish up.

Clark went back up the stairs and made another trip to the barn. He got some of the new hardware hooks from Fordman's and some of the older, well-worn and softer canvas sheets, and a couple sections of thinner metal pipe, and took them back down to the cellar. He spent some time bending the pipe and welding pieces of it together with his heat-vision, and then in screwing the hooks up into the rafters. He made sure he did this far enough out that it would cover an area large enough for both the tub and the new shelf, too, once he got it down and in.

He hung the pipe from the hooks, and then grabbed a random coathanger from the other side of the basement, snapped it into sections, and made hanging hooks for the canvas sheets. He hung up the canvas from the hooks over the pipe, and tried moving the sheets back and forth a bit on the pipe. It seemed to work out all right.

He glanced over at Lex, who was eyeing him with arms crossed.

He slid the canvas 'curtain' all the way open, turned around, and went back up the stairs.

He manhandled the tub down and around and over to the bathroom area, and glanced up to see Lex... get an unreadable look on his face. Clark set it down, and went back upstairs for the shelf and drawer he'd made.

When he came back down and carefully set it down next to the sink, Lex said, "A vanity table?"

Clark blinked. "I guess?" he said, looking down at it. "I didn't know they had a name for it...?"

Lex seemed to mostly ignore his tentative response. "The tub isn't connected," he pointed out brazenly.

"Well, no, not yet," Clark agreed easily enough, walking back over to the stairs.

He went and got the rest of the pipe, and the caulking solution, and pipe junctions, and other miscellaneous necessary things for plumbing work, and got down to it.

"The hot water line for the sink is broken," he was told.

"The sink doesn't have a hot water line," Clark replied.

"Are you going to connect that, too?" he was asked.

Clark ended up explaining the setup of the bathroom area plumbing to Lex as he worked on connecting the cold water intake to the tub faucet, and the drain to the main 'sewer' line that went to the septic tank.

Lex didn't look happy about any of it. "I'm not taking a cold water bath, Clark," he said belligerently, when Clark opened up the valve and started rinsing out the inside of the tub one last time.

"I don't expect you to," Clark told him, as he finished wiping down the inside with a spare cloth, flipped the damp cloth over his shoulder, and plugged the drain.

Lex frowned at him as he turned and walked away.

By the time Clark had gotten the hooks into the rafters for the canvas sheets, and gotten the canvas sheets hung up all around the perimeter of the room -- leaving the dirt walls no longer open to the main room, and the shelves no longer visible -- the tub was about three-quarters full.

Clark came back over and turned off the water.

Then he used heat-vision on the water in the tub.

He walked over to the base of the stairs, and made a quick trip to the house and then the mansion.

He came back with a mop and bucket, a broom, towels, some extra rags, a new set of pajamas and slippers for Lex, and new bedsheets and pillowcases and blankets for his bed.

He tossed the towels and the pajamas on the vanity and went over and removed the cuffs from Lex's wrist and ankle. He pulled the spike out of the wall in the bathroom area, and moved over to the section of floor above where he'd originally driven the spike down into the dirt.

He drove the spike through the canvas and into the dirt wall behind it.

Then he glanced over at Lex, who was still sitting on the toilet lid. "Go on," he told Lex. "Get in."

"What?" said Lex.

Clark stifled a sigh. "Get undressed and into the tub."

" _Hell_ no."

Clark sighed, walked back over, and dunked a couple fingers into the water.

Then he flicked it at Lex's face, who proceeded to yelp at him, then look surprised.

He brought two fingers up to his face and drew it through the droplets that had hit. He frowned slightly in confusion.

Then he slid off of the toilet seat and cautiously touched a finger to the surface of the bathwater, then pushed his hand under for a few moments.

He drew it out again and looked up at Clark. "How did you do that?"

"Heat vision," Clark told him, tapping his right temple. He turned away and picked up the broom.

"...You can shoot microwave-laser-beams out of your eyes?" he heard Lex say in rising tones.

"Sort of?" Clark shrugged, his back to Lex. "...Just, y'know, let me know when you want to take a bath, and once it's filled up I'll heat it up for you."

He heard the rustling of clothes behind him and motion of a large something breaking a surface of water behind him as he swept the new tile floor. "Is it hard to do?"

"The heat-vision thing?" Clark said, glancing back at Lex, who was submerged up to his chin and already lathering up soap. "Not really, no."

"I couldn't see you do it," Lex told him.

Clark sort of blinked at him. "Oh. Well, I can see it when I'm doing it," he offered, so at least Lex would know he couldn't accidentally miss or anything. He went back to sweeping -- it wasn't the sort of thing one could rush.

He was done sweeping and then mopping the floor before Lex was done scrubbing himself down. He heard Lex get out, and pull the plug on the tub.

He glanced back to see Lex dripping wet on the floor by the drain, looking like he was waiting for something.

"Problem?" he asked.

"Baths are dirtier than showers, and it's been days," Lex told him. "I'm going to fill it up again, and then soak for awhile."

Clark turned away to hide a smile. "Okay."

Clark used some of the spare rags to dry an area of the tile floor, then went back and retrieved Lex's mattresses. He carefully set it back down on the dry area of the floor and removed the sheets. He rolled them up and hefted them, and went back around the corner to toss them onto the pile of blankets on the no-mostly-empty plastic tarp at the base of the stairs.

He turned back around, saw Lex hadn't moved in the meantime other than to lean over the tub and mess with the drain and the knobs to start it filling again, and walked right back to the mattresses.

He carefully wiped down the edges of the box springs and the mattress, just to make sure that he got off all of the little dust and dirt that had clung to it from when it had been sitting in the dirt before.

He walked over to the far wall and used some of the unused rags to dry another section of floor completely, then moved the bed back to where it had been before, put it back together, and got the bedsheets and blankets back on it.

He performed a similar procedure with the pillows and pillowcases.

He tossed those over onto the bed, and then took a couple seconds to go over and heat up the water in the tub for Lex again, when he turned the water off.

Lex sank into the tub again with a soft groan, stretched out under the water, and tilted his head back, looking a lot more relaxed.

Clark bit his lip to stifle a relieved smile, and got to work sweeping and mopping the floor where he'd cleaned off the mattresses again. Then he carted the broom, mop, and bucket over to the bottom of the stairs, and picked up and moved the shelf that had been in the way back into place again, 'fixing' the 'hallway'.

He backed up and grabbed a couple of spare bricks he'd found in the corner of the cellar the day before, and started tacking down the bottoms of the canvas 'walls' that were hanging down in front of the shelves and trailing well-down onto the dirt. This way, the room looked more consistent, nicer, and if Lex threw anything towards this side of the cellar, it should hit the canvas and fall, not hit the canvas and push the canvas back and possibly hit and topple stuff off of the shelves behind them.

He would have thought that Lex would've soaked for hours, from the expression he'd had on his face, but by the time Clark was done messing with the bricks at normal speed, Lex was out of the tub and into the new pajamas.

Lex pulled the plug out of the bottom and set the tub draining, and Clark meandered over and washed his hands and face in the sink, and toweled himself dry with one of the extra towels.

"You're filthy," Lex informed him, giving him the once-over from head to toe.

"I'll take a shower before I make dinner," he told Lex.

He didn't bother to give Lex any warning, he just scooped up the cuffs and got them on Lex when his back was turned.

Lex made a swing at him after the fact, scowling, but it seemed a little half-hearted, almost.

Clark scooped up Lex's slippers and the other dirty laundry in the bathroom area and took it with him.

He grabbed the dirty sheets and stuff up from the tarp, and the other pair of slippers and shoes, and took it all up into the house with him.

He stuffed the blankets and sheets in the wash right away. He left the shoes and slippers by the door on the mat -- they had dirt thoroughly embedded in the soles of them now, and he didn't want it tracked through the house. It wasn't a huge problem for the shoes, but the slippers would need a thorough scrubbing before a washing.

He marched upstairs and got himself a shower. He felt a little better afterwards.

He got into a new change of clothing and made his way down the staircase, around the corner, down the halway, and into the kitchen.

He threw together some hamburger helper -- whatever, Lex could deal, he'd been busy all day and Lex knew it -- and some cucumber salad, and drank a gallon of milk all on his own waiting for things to cook. His stomach growled, and he was reminded that he hadn't eaten anything all day.

He munched on a bowl of cereal, that became two, then three, then four, before the meal was done cooking.

He made up two trays -- still hungry, skipped two meals! -- and made his way back to the cellar.

He found Lex sitting on his bed, absently frowning at the floor and softly kicking at it with the heel of his slipper.

He handed Lex his tray first, then went and got his folding chair, and then sat down and ate with him.

It was a quiet meal, and the atmosphere was slightly awkward.

When Lex was done, he just pushed himself off of his bed, stood up, walked over, and handed Clark his tray.

"I don't suppose you need any help with the dishes?" Lex said, sounding almost uncomfortable.

Clark raised an eyebrow. "Uh, no?"

Lex gave him an almost-smile. "It would only be fair, since you cooked."

Clark gave him a long look.

Lex took it in stride. He pretty much ignored Clark's _I don't think so_ , and simply walked over to the bathroom to wash up and brush his teeth.

Clark walked the trays out, and then came back and put away the folding chair.

"Do you need anything?" he asked Lex before he left, but Lex greeted him with nothing but silence.

So Clark clicked off the light for him, closed up the cellar doors, sighed to himself, and then went and got his sleeping bag again.

He undid the laces on his boots, settled into his sleeping bag, and slept like the dead.

~*~*~*~*~*~

Clark woke up to sunrise again, and smiled and stretched.

Then he remembered -- the bookcase! -- and sat up.

Then he laughed a little at himself as he got his boots on and picked up his sleeping bag. It probably wouldn't have worked out too well if he'd given Lex the bookcase last night, anyway -- Lex had complained all day about being bored, and fixing things that quickly... Lex would've seen that as a capitulation, because Lex was probably still thinking of this as enemies and wars and a fight. And the last thing that he needed was Lex thinking that if he just _complained_ enough that he'd get what he wanted.

Giving him the bookcase today though? That would be a nice surprise, right?

So Clark headed for the barn, and finished building a bookcase for Lex. He carefully put it on top of a tarp, and wiped it down, getting off all of the dirt and wood dust and everything until it was perfectly clean.

Then he went up into the (old, and still best) Fortress, and starting scanning his shelves. He smiled as he pulled down some old, worn favorites, and a few newer ones that he'd gotten after Lex had talked about them, so he could understand what Lex had said, and a couple he'd just thought were interesting that he thought Lex might like, too.

He went and filled up the bookcase, and picked it up carefully and moved it over close to the barn doors.

He opened the cellar doors first, and then went back brought it over to the cellar and straight down -- he didn't want to get dirt on the bottom of it setting it down too early.

He quietly walked across the floor and set it down next to Lex's bed, and saw Lex slowly stir.

He smiled to himself and zipped back out and up the stairs, then made his way back to the house.

He went and took a shower to get the wood dust off, changed clothes, and went down and make up french toast for breakfast, remembering that Lex had wanted that awhile ago.

He rummaged through the veggie bin and squeezed up some orange juice before the oranges went bad. He had to toss a grapefruit with a sigh. He poured some milk, too, just in case.

He defrosted some ham with heat-vision and then fried it up in a pan.

He added some small containers of honey, jam, powedered sugar, and homemade maple syrup to the trays, along with a few extra spoons, and realized that he probably couldn't juggle this easily on his lap without risking dropping it, and if he couldn't then it might also be a problem for Lex.

Eating this over his sheets might not appeal to him either.

So he sped out to the cellar and went down to look for something that might work.

As he rounded the corner, the old circular folding table with metal legs caught his eye, and he thought, _sure, why not?_

He grabbed his folding chair and rounded the corner to set that up first.

When he rounded the corner, he saw that the light was on, and Lex was standing, absently pacing. Lex froze in place, then blinked, then inhaled.

"Um, good morning?" Clark said as he set up his chair.

"I don't need a table or a chair," Lex said without preamble, "and the light's too dim."

"Huh?" Clark said. He hadn't planned on getting Lex a table or a chair -- what would he do with them? Was Lex worried that he'd clutter up his space too much with unnecessary furniture? He frowned. He knew that Lex liked his library-study more than any other room in the mansion, mostly because it was light and open and airy.

Then he glanced up at the bulb.

"The light's too dim!" Lex repeated angrily. "It barely illuminates this area, and as for the rest--" He made a few gestures at the corners. "At least the bathroom area has its own bulb hanging above the sink."

Clark blinked and glanced around the room again. He'd never realized... Well, his sight was better than most people's, though.

And if he couldn't read a bunch of new books he'd just gotten because he couldn't see the words on the page to read them... --well, he'd be angry, too.

"Okay," said Clark, striding forward and past Lex.

"...'Okay'?" said Lex, following after him.

Clark picked up Lex's length of chain, pulled the spike out of the wall and shortened Lex's length to almost what it had been before, and shoved it back into the wall.

Lex made a noise in the back of his throat, like he couldn't believe what had just happened. " _Clark--!_ " he choked out.

"Just sit down on the bed for awhile," he told Lex. "I need you to stay out of the way for a minute, okay?"

And it only took Clark about a minute to grab the last bit of leftover electrical cable he had from the barn and tie it into the junction that the two lights connected to.

Clark had found three spare light fixtures from his cellar-cleanout the day before, and he screwed them up into the rafters now, at equal distances from each other around Lex's cellar 'room', but not outside of Lex's reach -- he could pull all of the pullstrings himself.

He got a few extra bulbs from the house and screwed them in, along with some twine.

He tried clicking the lights on and off.

Then he frowned a little, because even he thought it was a bit much.

He got himself another four wire coathangers from the house, bent them into cube shapes, wrapped the outer four sides with cheesecloth, and grabbed the last few odd hooks from the barn.

He twisted the hooks up into the rafters, and hung the makeshift lampshades from them around the bulbs. He made sure that the pullstrings were clear, didn't catch, and clicked them on and off and on again.

He sighed in relief, glad that he'd had all the supplies he'd needed handy.

Then he went back over and fixed the spike at the wall, putting Lex on the new 'normal' length of chain again.

Lex blinked after him.

Clark picked up the few tools he'd needed for the job -- pliers, screwdriver, scissors, and such -- and went back to what he'd been doing before Lex had made his very valid complaint -- setting up for breakfast. He rounded the corner, set everything down on a shelf, and headed for the folding table set. He picked up the folding table in one hand, and grabbed another of the set of four chairs under his other arm.

Then he retraced his steps, rounded the 'hallway' back to Lex, set down the chair, and unfolded the table out for them. He moved the two chairs around to opposite sides.

Lex slowly got up and walked over, and Clark went away and stopped in the kitchen, looking down at the trays.

The french toast wasn't quite cold yet, but it'd still require reheating. Putting together the lampshades had taken a little too long. And...

...well, the way Lex had acted this morning had been, well, not so good. He could've just calmly said something, instead of barking at him like that. And at a second glance, the way this all was set up on the trays kind of looked like he was trying to bribe Lex, almost.

So Clark sighed and made up scrambled eggs and toast instead, absently muching on the room temperature french toast as his first and second helpings, and downed the orange juice -- a little too tangy, now that he'd tasted it, and probably a good thing he hadn't brought it down -- and then finished off both glasses of milk to get rid of the aftertaste, making a face.

He put away the honey and powdered sugar and maple syrup -- which wouldn't go good with eggs -- but kept the jam, and re-set up the trays again with new cold glasses of milk.

He brought it down, and they sat down and ate together, and it wasn't too bad.

Clark took the trays up first, then went and got new clothing for him for the day, and shoes, and towels and some more toilet paper - he'd noticed that he was running low -- and brought them back down.

He put it all on the table while he undid the metal cuffs, and when he was done Lex picked everything up and went over to the bathroom area, sliding the curtain closed behind him.

In the meantime, Clark folded up the table and chairs, and put them off in the corner, not really thinking too much about it. It was out of reach, but it still wasn't like Lex needed it out for anything anyway. And keeping them set up all the time would be weird and say the wrong thing, like he'd thought about earlier.

He didn't think about what putting them away within viewing distance but out of reach might mean.

When Lex came out of the bathroom and handed Clark his dirty laundry and towels, he headed back for the bed and sat down on the edge, looking anxious almost.

Clark bit his lip and had to set down the bundle to pick up the cuffs. Lex looked up at him and stared.

"Lex, I've kind of got to deal with the farm today," Clark told him as he straightened, holding the chains. "I can't stay down here with you this morning," because the only time Clark could safely not have him chained up was when he was right there, able to stop him if he tried something.

If Lex was a wild cat, Clark would've said his hackles rose.

Lex tried to scramble away from him over the bed, and Clark ended up sighing through his nose and having to grab him and hold him down to get the cuffs on him again.

Argh!

He picked up the bundle of dirty laundry off of the tile floor and left Lex sulking.

Honestly, he felt like sulking himself. It wasn't like he wanted to be away from Lex, or chain him up, or any of it. He would've been happy to spend the day down there with him and not put the cuffs on until he had to go make lunch. But he'd spent all day yesterday fixing up the place down there, and he was well-behind on trying to get the farm back in working order. He wouldn't be able to keep feeding Lex, if he didn't do any farmwork!

~*~*~*~*~*~

Lex was a little jittery at lunch, and Clark wasn't sure why.

Clark tried to make small talk with him, nothing that would set off a fight or anything like that, to try to put him at ease, but it didn't seem to have worked.

He sighed to himself as he put away the folding table and chairs off to the side again, and wondered what he was still doing wrong. What was he missing?

...Lex had said he hadn't wanted a desk or a chair, and that made perfect sense -- Lex didn't use those for anything other than work, and Lex wasn't going to be doing work here. But when Lex was lounging in the library... Did Lex maybe want a couch?

Clark wondered about that all through his farm chores-work, and his afternoon and almost last-minute grocery store run, and all throughout setting up and making up dinner.

~*~*~*~*~*~

Lex still seemed a little jittery at dinner, and a little too energetic and on-edge for whatever reason, but he hadn't really seemed all that inclined to talk. So Clark really hadn't been all that surprised when, suddenly, after he'd turned his back on Lex to fold up his chair once the meal was over, Lex started screaming curses at him, and he felt more than heard something headed for his head.

Clark slipped a hand up and caught the glass before it came within a foot of his head.

It was quiet except for Lex's heavy breathing, and Clark's slow steady breath.

Clark put down the glass and finished cleaning up the table, mentally sighing to himself, because that could've been a lot worse. The only surprising thing was that that had been all Lex had done. He'd really expected Lex to completely lose it at some point, but he hadn't yet. On the scale of calm-Lex to Lex-in-a-rage, everything he'd seen so far had been just small outbursts, even if they did still scare the hell out of Clark, sometimes.

Clark started to wonder if Lex ever would try trashing the place. And he wasn't sure if that was good, or bad.

He wasn't really sure why asking "Are the books okay?" would have triggered that much rage in Lex, either. Maybe if he'd been looking at Lex when he'd asked... except he did that when he had to take the cuffs on and off him, and he didn't understand that, either.

So Clark didn't say anything else, and just put away the folding table and chairs well out of reach -- not really wanting to think of what would happen if Lex got up in the middle of the night and decided to throw them at the shelves behind the one flimsy canvas 'wall'.

When Clark left with the trays, he was kind of glad that he'd set up the tub and had Lex bathe and change his clothing before dinner. If he'd had to try and deal with taking Lex's chains off and back on him after _that_ outburst...

Clark was pretty sure that that would've only made things worse.

~*~*~*~*~*~

Lex had dark circles under his eyes the next morning, and seemed very subdued.

Clark frowned a little to himself, but didn't say anything. He just set up the table and chairs again, and went and got the trays down -- waffles and apple and kiwi slices.

They ate in silence, and Clark didn't try to break the silence -- he was just happy that they weren't fighting -- though he did start to worry a little bit. Was this the calm before the storm?

Lunch was about as unevenful.

So was dinner.

Clark set up the tub for him after dinner, but Lex didn't seem to want to use it. He just walked away from the table when he was done eating -- only half his meal -- and collapsed on his bed with his day's clothes still on.

Clark frowned a little to himself when he left to do the dishes, wash up, change clothes, and go rab his sleeping bag, which he had decided needed washing that day.

He had kept an ear out most of the day when he'd been in the fields, but Lex hadn't... moved much.

He wouldn't have worried about Lex's lack of pacing around down there, except that it didn't look like he'd touched the books, either.

So when he went back out to the storm cellar, and he settled down in his bag over his 'Lex spot', he glanced down with X-ray just to make sure Lex was okay. And then he froze when he realized that the lights were still on.

Clark frowned, pulled his boots back on, and got back up.

He went over and opened up the cellar doors and went down to see what was going on.

"Lex?" he asked, pushing aside the canvas sheet and walking back in.

Lex glanced up at him from his bed, startled.

"Yes?"

Clark blinked down at him. "Um, why is the light still on?"

Lex stared back up at him.

"Um, do you need anything?"

Lex continued to stare.

"Right," Clark said quietly under his breath, and clicked all the lights off for him.

He went back up stairs, closed and locked the doors again, kicked his boots off again, settled into his sleeping bag, and wondered what he was doing so wrong.

~*~*~*~*~*~*~

The next day was kind of the opposite of the first.

...Well, not really. Lex had still been pretty much almost completely silent during breakfast, lunch, and dinner

Clark had even tried to push him a bit by making him french toast like he'd originally meant to give him two days before, and had served it to him this time, fresh and warm.

Nothing. He just ate it mechanically and didn't even ask for seconds.

What _was_ different was that Lex had looked broody and almost morose. He'd also made up for not pacing at all the day before by pacing pretty much all day that day.

He used the tub that night, but didn't seem to enjoy it. Clark was quick with the cuffs, not wanting to know what an outburst would be like when Lex was acting like this.

By the end of the day, Clark was exhausted from the stress.

He stared up at the night sky and wondered how long things were gonna be like this.

The clouded-over mess stretching from horizon to horizon looked about as bleak as his future with Lex.

Clark grumbled a little to himself as he heard raindrops start to fall in the distance. He turned over and sighed. He didn't really care if he got rained on; it wasn't like he could get sick from it, and it wasn't so uncomfortable.

And Lex would be okay; he was safe and warm.

Clark closed his eyes and listened to a distant rumble of thunder. He sighed and relaxed as he opened his ears to the sounds of the approaching storm.

And then he heard a soft 'click'.

He blinked his eyes open.

He heard it again.

He glanced around.

And then he looked down.

The he blinked and sat up.

Through X-ray, he saw Lex walking around, turning on the lights, one at a time.

And then he sat down on his bed, back against the wall, and drew a leg up to his chest. He set his chin on it.

_...What?_

Clark frowned, and reached for his boots.

He opened up the doors to the storm cellar, and slowly walked down. He threaded his way through the 'hallway' of shelves, and pushed aside the flap of canvas.

"...Lex?" he said, and paused.

Lex was staring right at him.

"Yes, Clark?" he said.

Clark bit his lip absently and glanced around. It didn't _look_ like anything was wrong...

"Is everything all right?" Clark asked, moving past the flap and stepping onto the tile floor.

"Yes," said Lex.

 _Okay..._ "Do you need anything?"

One corner of Lex's mouth twitched up a little, not really a smirk. Not really much of anything.

Clark rubbed the back of his neck. "Why did you turn on the lights?"

Lex smiled.

The smile didn't reach his eyes.

Clark felt a little frustrated.

"Lex, if you need me, you know you can just call, right?"

Lex didn't say anything. He just sat there for awhile, the smile-that-wasn't-a-smile slowly fading from his face.

And then he got up and started clicking off each of the lights.

When he was done, he padded back over to his bed and slipped under the covers.

The bathroom light was still on, somewhat dim with the canvas 'curtains' in the way.

"Do you want me to turn the bathroom light off?" Clark asked him.

"No. Leave it."

Clark wondered how dark it seemed without any lights on underground.

He turned and left.

As he sat down on his sleeping bag and pulled off his boots, and wondered what would happen if he left them upright instead of shoving them under the sleeping bag down by his feet, and how much rainwater they might catch, he also wondered why Lex had turned the lights back on.

Had he really just done it on a whim?

Had it been a test or something?

Had he just wanted to know if Clark would notice?

Clark couldn't tell. Lex had to tell him.

And Lex hadn't been talking to him for days.

Clark frowned as he snuggled down in his old sleeping bag. This just wasn't working. It had been a week, and the only real progress Clark had made was in making a storm cellar more habitable for a person to live in, if they had to. That wasn't what he'd been trying to do.

He needed to talk to Lex.

He needed to get Lex talking, even if it meant risking Lex getting angry with him, and starting another fight.

Something had to change.

He listened to Lex's breathing as it evened out, and to his heartbeat as it slowed, and to the storm approaching in the distance, and he thought, and thought and thought.

And Clark slowly came to realize that Lex not talkng to him was just another way of fighting him, too. Clark had made it clear that he needed to talk to, and convince Lex of, a lot of things that Lex probably wouldn't agree with. All Lex had to do to stay not convinced was avoid talking about any of it with Clark in the first place.

Clark shook his head and burrowed into his sleeping bag a little farther. He was tired, he had soft thunder and rain in his ears, and he was tired. He'd sleep now, and think about it more in the morning.

~*~*~*~*~*~

**Author's Note:**

> AN2: If anybody's interested in knowing how I explain what happened in canon according to the 'theory of magic', I give youuuuuuu... the Wall of Text! ;)
> 
> The Fortress was trying to protect Clark when it hit him with the visible beam in the season 7 finale. It couldn't reconfigure the Orb's original 'spell' even the littlest bit, but it could 'cast' its own to offset it somewhat. The Fortress still collapsed from the resonance, and Clark and Lex were still pushed apart like same-pole magnets, but what the Fortress did had Clark's personal energy oscillating around a lot, and when it finally stopped doing that so badly, his powers quit out on him and he ended up in sort of a self-loop (this is why he was able to make it through the storm without frostbite, but was powerless after). With his energy like that, his 'innate' use of his powers locked down, and so did his somewhat-weak bond with Lex. When he got his powers back (shoving him through a strong and very consistent solar E-M field sort of shocked his magic-based energy into a less 'stable' loop/bubble; electromagnetic energy's closely-related to and usually bleedoff from magic, like heat is to light, and vice-versa), his bond with Lex was still all snarled up and jangly just as bad as before, but he wasn't completely out of his skull because the Fortress had protected him from the worse of the shock associated with that, and at least things hadn't gotten any worse. The Orb didn't quite work out because of this, but he still couldn't get anywhere near Lex anyway, so he didn't even try to find him -- it was better for both of them if he just stayed away. When Lex showed up in Metropolis with the whole thing with the Kryptonite skin-suit, Clark couldn't help himself -- in separating Lana from Clark, but also in threatening them both the way he did, Lex was showing that he didn't love Lana anymore but was jealous enough not to want her near Clark, either. It reminded Clark of Lex and Kara, and he _had_ to see Lex so he ran to him, even though he had no idea what he'd do when he got near him, all angry and frustrated and lonely and everything all over again. And then Lex died. After Lex's death, Chloe was the only person really helping to keep him sane and on any sort of an even keel at all, but then he lost her support because of what Jimmy and he ended up turning to the Fortress for training, as much as he could handle for as far as he'd been able to grow in his magic with the few years he'd spent with Lex. Anything else he learned how to control since then was basically refinement of what he was already capable of. Being around the clone-Lx's kind of screwed him up, because of the remnants of the original bond. (This is one of the reasons why cloning became anathema on Krypton -- a Kryptonian could have a _kei-falloi_ , but this bond mostly came about due to genetic disposition, and the clone(s) couldn't bond with the same _kei-falloi_ \-- only one bond per familiar -- so the clones eventually went insane because they could feel the resonance of the original non-cloned Kryptonian's bond with their _kei-falloi_ , but they'd never get to have one, because while cloning Kryptonians ended up legal, cloning _kei-falloi_ was anathema from the start because you could only have the one bond with the one _kei-falloi_ and the cloned _kei-falloi_ (usually an animal) would go completely feral and kill anything within reach and then itself. I point to all the screwed-up Lx clones in close proximity and Lx-13's murderous rampage, and how Lx-15 (a.k.a. Conner) who was genetically different was able to get along with the others and managed to survive.) When Lex was resurrected, Clark got that really creeped-out look after Lex approached him, looked him in the eye, and touched his shoulders because he'd expected the repelling effect (his 'soul' energy had competely stopped and 'restarted' after his being resuscitated in what was termed the 'Lx-0' body). That didn't happen. He'd at least expected for their bond to end up really messed up when it snapped back in place, but it wasn't in any worse shape than it had been before the Fortress, and if anything was stronger and more direct, if still a little bit twisted. So he had the extra power boost from Lex to help stabilize his feelings and heart and therefore had no problem taking on Darkseid in mirror-Lionel's body. (And Season 11 is a whole 'nother can o'worms ;)
> 
> ...Yeahhh, sometimes I may think a _wee_ bit too much about things. Just a bit. ^_^;;
> 
> *wonders how many plotholes I left in there, oh well*
> 
> AN3: Edited/fixed the ASCII sketch on 2013-09-02.


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